Keeping Her Safe Read online

  Quinn Peachwood is the author of the Flash Fantasies series of short novellas, perfect for a quick bite of steamy goodness.

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  I've never been called on to guard a body like hers...

  Professional alpha male Quartz Andretti is hired as bodyguard to billionaire Tomasso Delgado to up his personal protection after a gangland attack. So what if the billionaire is neck-deep in the gangster mafia world? It pays the Andretti Agency’s bills and Quartz doesn’t get personally involved with his clients' backstory.

  Until he arrives at the mansion and finds Cydnee Delgado, alone in the mansion. steams his shades. The older man alpha protector gets his shades steamed and his self-control sorely tested by Daddy's sweet girl. With a body built for scandal and a father threatening murder, this little girl is big trouble.

  If Daddy got wind of the explosive chemistry building in his house, he'd take out a double contract killing. This job is strictly hands off and eyes down.

  Securing Cydnee and keeping that sizzling body safe is a 24/7 gig but can he keep his mouth away from just one bite of the forbidden apple?

  Keeping Her Safe

  Flash Fantasy No. 1

  Quinn Peachwood

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Epilogue

  Nonna’s Spaghetti Carbonara Recipe

  About the Author

  1

  Cydnee

  “Hello, can anyone hear me out there?” I shout for like the hundredth time.

  I’m in fucking lockdown.

  I was tossed inside this box - my father’s new safe room - and told it would only be for a short time while they secured the perimeter. They said it was a drill but I’ve been in here fifteen hours according to my phone - which does not work by the way. No internet or phone signal blasts through these two feet thick walls of steel-core cement.

  There’s food in here at least, although it’s far from gourmet. A kind of kitchen area behind a sliding door is stacked high with the kind of stuff Doomsday preppers hoard in bedroom closets. Cans of tuna, granola bars, long-life milk. All the kind of shit I do not eat.

  And there’s a washroom molded entirely from white plastic, like you’d see on a space station I expect. You don’t even have to clean it. There aren’t any housekeepers or inside this safe room so once the door slides shut, you flip a switch and a shower hoses down the room.

  I guess. I wouldn’t know never having been inside when it happens. I’m deadly curious but too afraid of drowning in there like that episode of Will and Grace where they’re inside Karen’s smart shower and it locks the doors and is filling up to the ceiling with them trapped like fish in a bowl.

  My Father thought of everything for our safe box, everything except what-the-fuck-do-we-do-all-day-long when we’re going out of our minds with boredom?

  “Can someone just tell me when I can get out of here?” I shout again, not even bothering to lift my head off the mattress atop the base that’s also molded out of the white plastic room. A room I might go mad in, if I haven’t already.

  A terrifying though suddenly occurs to me. What if they’re all dead?

  My father’s men weren’t expecting the attack on our home. Why would they be? Nothing like the sudden onslaught of gunfire, explosion and smoke had ever occurred in my lifetime.

  When Daddy built this safe room, less than a year ago, I teased him endlessly about it. “When will we ever use it?”

  My mother had left, gone to live in Florida with an associate of Daddy’s and I wondered whether the safe room was some weird response to that. Because why else would he build this plastic fortress behind a steel wall in our family manse?

  “It’s simply for your protection, Baby Girl.” He’d said at the time.

  “Protection from what?”

  “Whatever might hurt you my sweetheart. I intend to keep you safe at all costs.”

  Being his only offspring, it occurred that he might be thinking of using the safe room more like a safe cell, in case I had ideas of running away like my mother.

  But that was crazy thinking- back when I was still a teen in high school. My father’s possessive to the max but he’d never imprison me to keep me with him, would he?

  It was early morning and I was still lying lazily in bed, thinking I should get up and move to a lounger by the pool at least. I was still trying to get the energy together when I heard the first shouts out on the lawn, swiftly followed by all the freakishly terrifying sounds of a raid - guns, explosions, en shouting orders. and all the rest.

  I leapt out of bed and pulled on sweats but before I had the chance to add a top to cover up my transparent silky nightshirt, a man burst into my room. It immediately filled with smoke coming in from the hallway overlooking the foyer.

  I screamed but a voice came through the haze. Alonzo, my father’s favored and oldest guard said; “Come quickly Miss Delgado we’re under attack.”

  Without waiting for a response from me, or replying to my questions about who was attacking us, he took my by the arm and led me upstairs and through my Father’s library study to the secret panel at the rear. He pressed a button then a combination code and shoved me inside before closing the panel on me.

  “Isn’t my Father…?”

  He didn’t answer my question about Daddy’s whereabouts and whether he’d be joining me inside the safe cell he had constructed at a cost of almost two million dollars. Yeah, I know - just imagine all the nice homes you could build with that amount of money. All the nice vacays to sunny spots instead of being trapped in a plastic airless box. (Obviously it isn’t airless and I think that’s what consumed a vast amount of the cash, piping in constant air, cool or warm).

  At least I thought to grab my phone. Because Daddy said we should never leave incriminating evidence lying around. Haha. I wouldn’t want anyone to see some of the photos of me that I’ve taken. Sexy selfies are kind of my thing. Well I have to amuse myself somehow, even if I have no one to send them to.

  But in here there’s no service and I can’t get anyone to hear my calling. If everyone died in the attack, how long will I last on seventeen cans of tuna and ten of canned peaches. Yuck. I might just die from can-nitis.

  “Let me out.” I shout again. “Can anyone hear me out there? Any one?”

  Because at this point I don’t even care if it’s the enemy that comes for me. I’m getting close to panic, or ripping my hair out.

  I pace up and down, calling out at intervals with less and less hope of being rescued. With a frustration tantrum threatening, I lie down and shut my eyes even though there’s no possible way I’ll be able to relax.

  “Miss Delgado, Miss Delgado, wake up please.”

  I come swimming up out of sleep and jump half out of my skin. I sit up sharply, staring at the boulder of flesh standing over me.

  “Who the hell are you?” I snap.

  I’ve never seen the dude before. He’s wearing a very well-tailored suit, far better than any of Daddy’s guards usually wore. And my tummy is a safe room holding a swarm of fluttery things all of a sudden - because the dude is hot. In a brutal kind of way - all stubbled jaw and aggressive posture.

 
“Quartz.” He answers.

  “Like the gemstone?” I quip. “That’s your name?”

  “It is, Miss Delgado.”

  “Quartz something or Mr Quartz?”

  He’s having a laugh, I’m sure.

  “Just Quartz. Shall we leave? We’re totally secure now.”

  “I haven’t seen you around?” I make no effort to follow him. What if he’s a bad guy?

  “If we could just get out of this room, I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  I stand up and Quartz’s dark blue eyes swivel slightly to the left with a vacant stare. Is he trying not to look at me? I think he is. A smile lifts the outside corners of my mouth and then I remember. Damnit. I’m wearing baggy sweats but my sleep top is basically transparent.

  I recall this because my nipples have popped up and are grazing at the cool satin fabric which only makes them prod more aggressively. Quartz is desperately averting his gaze from my near nakedness.

  It’s kind of sweet that a brutal-looking guy with muscles that could wrestle a truck to the ground, is also equipped with a sense of gentlemanly behavior.

  “Miss Delgado, can we leave now please?”

  It’s not a question. He takes my arm and a lightning strike hits right where his heavy palm lies. He guides me gently but firmly toward the open panel door. I’m about to yank my arm out of his grasp but it’s gone strangely limp, with a tingling heat running up and down the veins.

  I probably shouldn’t go with him until I know who the heck he is but then again I’m desperate to get out of my jail cell.

  “At least I’m saved from Can-nitis.” I mutter under my breath.

  “Excuse me, Miss?” My protector rasps.

  He has the hoarsest voice I’ve ever heard. And he’s built like a boulder as I might have already mentioned, if boulders were perfectly formed with solid broad chests and slender hips and dressed impeccably.

  “Little Bird has flown the coop.” He says into his tricep.

  “Little Bird? Is that me?” I say, in what I believe is a silky voice. My father’s guards are never this attractive.

  He purposely hires them ratty, after what happened with my mother running off he doesn’t trust any man.

  “Does my Father know you’re here?” I ask, suspicious now.

  “Mr Delgado hired my firm to come in on damage control.” He says.

  He still refuses to meet my raised eyes looking up at him. I guess he doesn’t trust himself to shift his eyes anywhere near my basically bare bod.

  “Where is my father? Take me to him.” I say.

  “Mr Delgado is not on-site.” Quartz replies.

  “Where is he?”

  Although the door is plenty wide enough to allow us to exit side by side, Quartz’s heavy hand slides to the small of my back. His palm flattens against the curve and he takes one step back to guide me lightly, but oh so firmly, through in front of him.

  So chivalrous.

  And I feel quite a let down when his hand lifts away from my body leaving a coldness. I’d have liked nothing more than for him to keep his palm resting right there, or anywhere else for that matter.

  “His minders moved him to a safe house from where he called my company to move in and secure this house and then free you from the safe room.”

  “So when is he coming back?”

  “Current status unknown.”

  What a bizarre way to talk. I don’t say. “So are we going to him?”

  “Negative. Orders are to remain here for security.”

  “If’ it’s secure why can’t my father return?”

  “Keeping the two attractive prospects in separate safe houses is deemed more secure for the time being.”

  “So I’m an attractive prospect?” I tease. He averts his eyes and his jaw flexes. “And I’m supposed to live here with you? Alone?” I add, enjoying the power I seem to have to make the tough guy squirm.

  I stop on the landing close to my room and stare at him, willing him to meet my questioning gaze. He must sense my insistence because he stops a little way ahead and turns back. His blue eyes hit mine like a monsoon and I almost feel blowback from the force.

  From one moment to the next my stance changes from flirty teasing, willing him to dare to check out my bare chest, to being stripped and tied up helpless under him.

  He knows what I’m doing - provoking him, taunting him and he’s calling me out on it without saying a single word.

  My heart rate picks up and my palms moisten. He watches as I wipe them across my sweats before I can stop myself. His eyes glisten as they observe my lips part to allow my breathing to move through me faster. What the hell is happening to me? My body is acting like I’m sprinting away from a wolf pack.

  “Affirmative.” He replies. “Miss Delgado.” As his mouth curls around my name his lips fill as though he’s savoring a cupcake, or in his case a shot of whiskey maybe.

  My heart is thumping so hard it hurts.

  I storm down the hall, straight past him, up the stairs and into my room. I don’t dare look at him as I pass but the heat rises as I approach him and cools off as I move away. Heat from his body, from muscles so taut they could snap.

  I don’t dare look but I’m sure he’s examining the swollen bullets on my chest as I pass. And then my jiggling butt as I recede.

  I go to my bathroom, slam the door and lean against it, panting freely. I’m having some kind of hot flush at the age of twenty two. I go to the faucet and turn it on full, dousing my face with cold water.

  “Who does he think he is? Wait ’til I tell Daddy.”

  What? What can I tell him? I can’t even know for sure whether Quartz was ogling my body as I stomped past him. Because I was too afraid of his eyes drilling into me.

  “Well two can play his game.”

  I rummage through a drawer and pull out the tiniest bikini I own. I bought it on a trip to Vegas and Daddy told me to go back in and change the moment I stepped out at the pool wearing it. All the guards just about dropped their pistols and developed new ones when they saw me.

  I wriggle the tiny scraps of white crochet fabric over my tits and ass. It’s unlined so the dark circles around my nipples are visible if you choose to look closely.

  Let’s see what Quartz chooses.

  2

  Quartz

  Her father warned me in no uncertain terms that Cydnee has a tendency to display minx qualities. ‘Coquettish’ he called them.

  “She’s a young woman flirting with her femininity.” He said. “You tell your men that under no circumstances are any of them to so much as look at her, no matter how much she flutters her pretty eyelids.”

  “Don’t worry Mr Delgado, Sir. I’ll run this contract myself. She’ll be fully protected, even from admiring eyes.”

  “Good. Make it so. Anything happens to my baby girl you’ll have me to answer to.”

  I yes Sir and no Sir-ed him until he was satisfied. Men like that need to be dominant. Because what was he going to do if any of my crew had to answer to him? He’d be shaking in his socks soon as he clapped eyes on any one of us.

  If that girl belonged to me, no amount of danger would have me separated from her. I’d keep her next to me and not even an army would get past me. This Delgado character seemed more concerned with his own skin in my opinion.

  He claimed his advisors said it was safer to maintain separate houses for him and his daughter, but I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t want the bother of her kidnap and ransoming coming too close, should the gang he said he was in a misunderstanding with come back stronger. Bring ‘em on because like I said, they’ll have to get past me first.

  But true to my word, I avoid looking at her. Unless she needs to be tamed, just enough.

  I’m making a perimeter swoop, checking that my guys are on full alert, there’s nothing suspicious, when the minx comes swanning out of the French doors at the back of the house.

  Jeezus Mary, at first glance I thought she was stark naked. On sec
ond glance she may as well be. The two men on either side of the doors come close to a spasm as she wiggles past on a pair of high heeled sandals.

  “Eyes on the ground.” I growl as I come up beside them from behind, following that unbelievable shaking flesh.

  “Sir.” They mumble.

  I double check to make sure they followed my order because the sight of her is so irresistible it’s enough to make any man lose his mind. The white bikini is like a few threads of packing string, barely holding her flesh in place.

  Hard as I try I can’t take my eyes off her round rear as she moves daintily down the steps to the pool. Her smooth ass cheeks shake with the perfect amount of jiggle and bounce, both firm and soft and so fucking smooth you could lay your cheek there and go to heaven.

  No wonder the old man has to keep her sequestered. She’s a five alarm fire and triple heart failure rolled into one package. When she reaches the bottom step, she whispers a ‘hello’ with a flutter of her eyelashes at my man standing guard there, watching the grounds.

  He grins back at her and my blood starts to boil in my veins. He knows he shouldn’t speak to her or even look at her. The urge to wring his neck rushes through me.

  As though she knows exactly what I’m going through, Cydnee tosses a look back over her shoulder. When she catches me watching her, her eyelashes flutter.

  Does she detect how fucking deranged I am, thanks to this little stunt? My face feels like it’s burning up from the combination of anger and downright lust I’m dealing with here.

  The side of her breast is bare almost to the nipple and I can’t do a single thing to stop my cock stiffening in my pants. Thank fuck the old man is holed up in another location because if he could see me now I’d be out on my ear, if not dead.