The 9-Month Bodyguard. Cindy Dees

opened his mouth to scream at Sampson to throw himself on top of her.

      But it was too late.

      The deafening report of a gunshot exploded in the lobby.

       Chapter 4

      Silver froze as the world went mad around her. She registered a flash of motion. A shout of warning from behind. And then an explosion of noise so loud it made her teeth hurt. A giant sheet of glass crashed down a few feet behind her, showering her with shards of exploding glass.

      People screamed and were running and ducking and falling everywhere. She didn’t know what to do. Everyone around her melted away, leaving her standing all by herself in a sea of glass, marble and glittering chrome. The torrent of crystal prisms fell like rain around her, each with its own rainbow of slivered light trapped within it. So pretty. The thought floated through her head, completely detached from reality.

      Mark was a dozen feet away, cursing at the top of his lungs. He was turning in circles, as if he was looking for somewhere to run and hide but couldn’t decide which way to go.

      And then something hit her from behind. It felt like a freight train had just slammed into her at seventy miles per hour. It drove her to the ground, face first, crushing her in darkness and suffocating weight. Panic struck her then. She couldn’t breathe! She had to run! To get out of here, away from this insanity. To protect her baby!

      “Let me up!” she tried to scream. It came out no more than a breathy gasp devoid of sound.

      “Are you hit?” a deep voice asked sharply in her ear.

      Austin. A wave of relief washed over her, so powerful and warm it nearly made her faint. “I don’t think so.”

      He shouted from above her, “Sampson! Clear the lobby! Set up suppression around the exterior perimeter so the subject can be evacuated!”

      “Huh?” Mark obviously didn’t have the slightest idea what Austin had just told him to do.

      Violent swearing erupted in her left ear, much of it dealing with Mark’s questionably human parentage and complete lack of training. Then Austin was giving her instructions, urgent and low. “We’re getting up and running like hell. We’re gonna zigzag back and forth so the gunman has less of a shot at you.”

      Gunman? Gunman? Was that what that noise had been? A gunshot? Ohmigod.

      “Let’s go!” Austin bit out.

      All of a sudden his bulk was gone, replaced by light and air and an awful sense of exposure that made her want to curl up in a little ball with her hands over her head and never move again. But then Austin was pulling at her, yanking her to her feet. She managed to stay vertical and keep up with his zigzagging run until they burst out from under the covered overhang into the blistering late afternoon sun. Austin paused, looking around quickly.

      “Hey! Let go of her!”

       Mark again.

      “Give it up, Bubba. You don’t know a damn thing about being a bodyguard. Get out of my way before you get your girlfriend killed. Let me do my job.” Austin sounded like he’d about had it with Mark.

      Austin was dragging her forward again, toward a long, black stretch limo parked on the far side of the sweeping circular drive.

      “That’s it, pretty boy!” Mark shouted. “You and me, right here, right now—”

      “Shut the hell up, Sampson.” And with that, Austin yanked open the back door of the limo and surprisingly gently pushed her inside. Her heel caught on the thick carpet and she stumbled, landing on her knees on the carpeted floor as something big blocked the light behind her. The door slammed shut, and yet again, Austin banged into her.

      “Oomph,” she grunted as she went down on her side.

      The glass panel between them and the driver was sliding down. A pale, shocked face stared at them from under a chauffeur’s cap.

      “Get this car moving if you don’t want to get shot!” Austin ordered the driver in a tone of command that brooked no disobedience. The vehicle lurched into motion violently, dumping Austin on the carpet beside her. Tires screeched, and the vehicle made a sharp turn before accelerating powerfully.

      She blinked over at Austin, lying no more than a foot away from her. His eyes were green, a deep, shadowy shade like the darkest part of a forest. She said dryly, “We have to stop meeting on floors like this.”

      He grinned back at her. “I haven’t been horizontal this many times with a woman without being in bed with her since…ever.”

      In bed with him? Whoa. Now there was a thought. A tingle of that same electric attraction that had about jolted her out of skin the first time he’d tackled her shot through her now.

      His pupils dilated hard and fast. All of a sudden, his gaze went so black and hot she could hardly bear to look at him. Other details started to register. His arm, heavy and muscular, lay across the indentation of her waist. And his leg was thrown across hers. If she leaned forward just a little bit, she could cuddle up against that big, brawny chest of his. Her face would fit in the strong curve of his neck, and his shoulder would make a perfect pillow for her head. A lock of his hair had fallen across his forehead, and her fingers itched to reach up and push it away.

      “Are you okay?” he asked so tenderly it made her heart ache a little.

      “Yeah.” And then an awful thought hit her. “Are you okay?” she blurted, alarmed. Her hands splayed across his chest of their own volition, searching frantically for injuries.

      He grinned then, a lopsided thing oozing so much charm it ought to be illegal. “I’m fine. I’d have been glad to take that bullet for you but no, I’m not hit. Thanks for asking, though.”

      Her hands stopped, somewhere in the middle of all those acres of muscle. “Take a bullet for me?” she repeated blankly.

      “Yes. I’m a bodyguard. It’s what I do.”

      “Get shot?”

      Another one of those lethal grins. “Well, the idea is to avoid either one of us getting shot in the first place, but if it comes down to you or me, it’s my job to take the hit.”

      She shuddered at the thought of deadly lead slamming into this man and erasing that smile forever. “Don’t take a bullet for me, okay?”

      He drew her closer against him, and funny thing, she had no desire whatsoever to resist. That volcano of heat and lust that had erupted between them back in the casino exploded again, spewing steam and fire and molten images of sex with him all over the back of the limo. She’d been no saint in her day and had certainly partaken of meaningless sex just for the sake of it now and then. But never, ever, had she been bowled over by an attraction to any guy this instantaneous and this incendiary.

      Her entire body felt liquid, flowing over and around him, seeking to engulf every inch of him. His arms tightened around her like tempered steel bands, and his desire rose to meet hers, towering every bit as powerfully as hers. For an instant, fear flooded through her. What had she unleashed between them? It was so big, so overwhelming, she wasn’t entirely sure she could handle it. She looked up, and Austin was staring down at her, looking every bit as stunned as she felt. Well, that was something, at least. Somehow, the idea of him being blown away, too, calmed her.

      She relaxed once more in his arms, her trust restored. This was not ops normal for him, either. Something gigantic had happened between them. She hadn’t imagined it.

      Wonder filling his dark gaze, he murmured, “I’ll do my level best not to have to take a bullet for you. But rest assured, I will do it if necessary. I’ll die for you.”

      The import of those simple words slammed into her like a boulder. She stared at him for a long time, trying