“Do you think the media are out there, Uncle Mick?” Dwayde asks nervously while Mick slips on a leather jacket and dark shaded Oakleys.
“Probably not. If they were, Max and Stiles would have let me know. So no worries, okay?”
Dwayde nods, seeming reassured, and I wonder who Max and Stiles are.
Mick adjusts his brim one last time and steps forward with his familiar long, easy strides. “After you.” He gestures and I precede him through the gym door and down the corridor.
Even in his disguise, Mick draws attention. He’s just so male. So potent. So there. But obviously accustomed to the rubberneckers and oglers, I don’t hear him skip a beat in his bantering with Dwayde about who’s going to be the master of some video game.
Just before we reach the front doors, I feel a large hand settle onto my lower back, and the sudden contact causes me to jump.
Mick firms his hold and leans in close enough for his mouth to glance my ear. His breath is warm and he smells amazing. “As a precaution, let me go first. I don’t want you walking out into anything unexpected.”
I gulp fretfully, my anxiety as much about his nearness as it is about the idea of being plastered across the tabloids with Mick. I doubt the headlines would be kind to me, and I’d rather not find out.
He drops his hand and the loss of contact leaves me feeling disturbingly bereft. I watch him step around me and push through the double doors. He scans the outside as if expecting the paparazzi to leap out of the bushes at any moment.
“Mr. Peters?” A large, muscular man with arms the size of boulders moves toward Mick with surprising agility. “The coast is clear, sir.”
“Thanks, Stiles.”
So Stiles is a bodyguard? He’s wearing shades too. And with his deep brown skin, polished bald head and black bushy eyebrows, he resembles a dark, badass version of Mr. Clean.
“Anything else, sir?”
“I’ll be picking Dwayde up from the Waldorf after his visit. You know the one in Gold Coast, near my place?” Stiles nods. “I’ll call you as soon as I hear from him.”
“We’ll be on standby.”
“Appreciate it,” Mick says, extending his hand, and they share a firm shake.
With another nod, Stiles takes his leave and joins an equally mountainous man, this one with a handlebar mustache. He is standing beside a black tank, which I think is a Hummer.
“Just taking the necessary precautions since the last incident with the press,” Mick explains to me and resumes his long-legged strides down the stairs to the parking lot.
I can’t even begin to fathom living this way. And I wonder if Mick would say selling out his dreams for fame and fortune was worth the loss of privacy and freedom.
“Which one is yours?” he asks.
I indicate the silver Acura and dig the remote from my purse. While I click open the locks, Mick pulls Dwayde into a hug. “You know I love you, right?”
The preteen hunches his shoulders, likely embarrassed by Mick’s affectionate display in front of me and the bulky men watching us. “Yeah, sure.”
“But even so.” His tone sounds teasing as they draw apart. “That’s not going to stop me from taking you down.”
“In your dreams, Uncle Mick.”
Mick goes in for a tussle that has Dwayde laughing again…and my heart thawing. Angry with myself for letting Mick get to me, I wrench open the driver’s side door.
“Dee?” he calls out.
The breeze steals a couple of strands from my ponytail and blows them across my face as I reluctantly look back over my shoulder. Although his eyes are shielded, I can feel them touching me here, caressing me there.
“I’ll see you later.”
His dark promise feathers tiny tingles over my skin and radiates heat from the juncture of my thighs. I swallow down the unwanted desire. But through his mirrored lenses my conflicted reflection is tossed back at me. Afraid my voice—like my body—will betray me, without responding, I turn away before Mick sees too much.
Before he realizes just how much he still affects me.
