Page 15 of Israel

Chapter 7

As her bandmates had predicted, the hottieguard stuck to Ashley like glue the entire day. Worse, instead of standing outside her door looking intimidating the way he was supposed to, he spent his time lounging in the comfy chair in the corner of her dressing room. Watching her.

Except when she went across the street to eat at a nearby restaurant with Alicia, her personal assistant, and Tiffany, her stylist. Then he sat at the next table.

Watching her.

At least he wasn’t drooling in her food. Although she still wasn’t ruling that out as a future possibility.

This whole thing was unnerving.

Especially since this was no knuckle-dragging, brainless thug. She couldn’t ever tell what Israel was thinking, but she could see he was observant and intelligent, taking in everything, his brain clicking along behind those stormy gray eyes.

He was supposed to make her feel safe, wasn’t he? But the way he looked at her made her feel anything but. There was a heat and intensity in his eyes that made her feel off-balance. Excited. Frustrated. Distracted.

By late afternoon, she was completely wound up. This was usually the time she took a “rest” in her dressing room, which meant she kicked everybody out and worked alone on her computer or with her guitar, writing songs, or conferencing on Skype with her music producer.

The problem was, the hottieguard wouldn’t go away. It was making her claustrophobic.

“For God’s sake, why can’t you just take a chair and sit in the hall, like a normal bodyguard?” she snapped at him. “I feel like I have a new puppy. Or a toddler. Next you’ll be wanting to come in the bathroom with me and stare at me while I pee.”

He ignored that, which annoyed her even more.

“I told you, I need to discuss some security issues with you,” he said patiently. “You’ve been putting me off all day.”

And she intended to keep on doing that. “Harrison takes care of the security issues.”

“Harrison won’t tell me what kind of shifter you are.”

She blew out her breath in an exaggerated sigh. “What part of ‘need to know only—and you don’t need to know’ did you not understand?” she asked.

“I do need to know,” Israel said, running his hand over his buzz cut in frustration.

Well, that didn’t take long. She’d already used up his patience.

Okay, good. Ashley was spoiling for a fight to burn off all the agitation he’d been causing her, and it looked like she was well on her way.

He said, “I need to know if you have any natural defenses. And what’s the worst that could happen if you panic shift.”

Panic shifting was an uncontrolled shift that sometimes happened if a shifter was terrified or badly hurt. It could be a disaster if humans saw it and realized that shifters existed, not to mention the danger of the shifter attacking one of them.

At least that couldn’t happen to her.

“I don’t panic shift,” she said flatly.

Israel rolled his eyes, his frustration clearly mounting. “You can’t know that for sure,” he said. “What if you’re cornered or taken hostage? Unless you’ve been in combat situations and are trained to handle them, there’s no telling how you or your animal will react.”

She just shook her head.

“It’s standard protocol for security jobs,” he added. “In order to protect you properly, we have to be prepared for anything.”

“I’m not going to panic shift, okay?” she said. “And my animal can’t protect me if I get in trouble. That’s what you’re here for. Are we done now?”

He bit his lips, and she could tell he was barely holding back his temper.

“It’s that necklace, isn’t it?” he said unexpectedly. “What is it? Some kind of a suppressor that blocks your animal? Is that why you look so drained?”

Her hand went immediately to her throat. Holy shit. How had he figured that out so fast? If he figured out the rest of it, they were both in deep shit. That could not be allowed to happen.