The Assassin’s Billionaire Bodyguard
Chapter 23

"Hi," Isabella touched his chest.

"Hi, can I come in?" Cam eyed her curiously as she subconsciously blocked his entrance.

"Yes," she stepped backwards as she realized she barred the entrance and led him inside. Casper, at the top of the stairs let out one annoyed bark and then trotted down the stairs to plunk on the bottom step to eye Cam critically. "He's irritated you're disrupting his sleep." "I drove by and saw the light on upstairs. It's why I called. I knew you were awake." He touched her cheek, "you are so beautiful."

She chuckled, "I have no make-up on, I'm in a ratty old NYU t-shirt and my hair is a rat's nest."

"Your skin is flushed. Your eyes are sparkling and I'm very much aware of what is under the shirt." He smiled wickedly, "and your hair makes me want to bunch it up in my fists."

She blushed at his words, "you're incorrigible."

"I've missed you Isabella," he said quietly. "I couldn't sleep, and I went for a drive, and I found myself here, parked outside your house." He touched her cheek softly, "Isabella, I don't want to fight with you."

"I don't want to fight with you either," she whispered as she curved her cheek into his palm.

"Can we go to bed?"

"Direct and to the point," she made a face.

"Truthfully," he said seriously, "for all the jokes I've made recently, Sunday night was the first time I've slept soundly in years. I'm looking to recreate the best sleep in my life."

"You came here to sleep with me?"

"Yes, I mean do I want to have s*x with you? Yes, I really do. What I really want in this moment though is to hold you while we sleep." He motioned to the stairs, "let's go."

She paused and looked at Casper. "Um, Casper sleeps in the bed with me. He's never slept anywhere else."

"And he's not going to tonight either," he bent down and scooped the dog off the stairs. "How much room can a tiny dog take?"

She made a face as he followed her up the stairs and then set Casper on the top stair and followed him down the hall.

She'd never had a man in her bedroom, other than when her brothers and dad had moved the furniture in here and set up her place.

Cam whistled lowly as he took in the space. "Can you have a chat with Portia?"

"Excuse me?"

"You can't walk into her room without tripping over her entire wardrobe of clothes. Isabella, you could probably eat off your floor in here and you have a dog."

She chuckled. "You've never met Carolina Ruiz. My mother did not allow us to leave the house in the morning without our bed being made, our clothes put away and our workspaces tidy." She motioned to her desk in the corner. "Even though I checked my email earlier for work sitting in bed, I still had to get up, put my laptop away and in the drawer away from view. I abhor untidiness."

"I thought maybe you had a housekeeper to keep downstairs tidy but it's all you."

"I'm finicky." She shrugged. "Did you really come to my room to talk to me about my cleanliness habits?"

"No, I came here so I could hold you, sleep with you and forget the hell of this week." He watched as she pulled her sheets back. "I'm glad to see you have a king-sized bed and not a little double."

She snickered, "first thing I did when I moved out my parent's home was to purchase a bed long enough for my legs just so I can sleep on the edge while my eight-pound dog takes up three quarters of it."

He suddenly noticed the ramp. "He has his own access ramp?"

"It's either the ramp or he tries to jump down to pee in the night and breaks his legs." She paused, "he has an electronic doggy door he can access in the back with his special collar, so he doesn't pee in the house. I can't have him trying to get to the door by jumping."

"Valid point," he said with a concerned stare. "Does he ever fall?"

"Nope. He's very aware of his surroundings, even when sleeping."

"And where does he sleep?"

"On the extra pillow." She pointed to the pillow on the far side. She climbed on the bed and adjusted Casper's pillow, so it was nestled on the bed but close to the nightstand, where a single lamp was illuminated. "There, I'll sleep in the middle." She cast a mischievous glance at Cam, "my first threesome."

He threw his head back and roared with laughter. "Isabella, I have missed your sassiness." He quickly removed his clothes and folded them neatly, placing them on the chair near the desk. "Are they okay here?"

"Yes. I promise my sensibilities aren't so tightly wound a few clothes will make me crazy." She noted he was completely naked and unashamed in her space. "Cam." She took a breath.

"What's wrong," he moved to the bed and slid in beside her.

"I've never had a guy in here before. This is my safe space and I," she took a breath, "this is huge for me."

"Do you want me to go?"

"No, I very much want you to stay." She admitted quietly. "Also, I haven't had one for a long time but sometimes I have nightmares. With the crap with Evgeni and the fight with the mugger tonight, my emotions are a bit off, which is why Casper still hasn't gotten on his pillow. He's waiting for me to settle."

"Okay. Is there something I can do to help?"

"No, I'm just warning you more than anything. I don't anticipate anything but given you're in my space and this is new, well, if something happens, I just want you to know you don't need to do anything. Casper knows how to wake me, calm me and deal with my craziness."

"Understood," he realized she was telling him she needed space if she woke up screaming.

She waited for him to lay down in the bed and then snuggled up to his side, her hands tucked under her cheek as she watched him settle into her pillow. He rolled to his side and looked at her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. It felt intimate and comfortable as they looked at each other quietly.

"I'm sorry for last night, Isabella."

"Me too. I know you're trying to keep me safe."

"You're important to me. I don't like how obsessed he's become. Against every ounce of my better judgement, I'm going to let you take control but I'm begging you to keep me in the loop."

"I will." She took a breath, "and I'll try to cut you some slack. I know you deal with dangerous situations all day every day and so you're always looking at the dark side of life. Clara does too and she trusts me and my judgement Cam. I need you to do the same. Don't underestimate us because we're women."

He slid his hand under her and pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head as she rested her head on his shoulder. "It's not because you're a woman Isabella. I've been doing security work since I was twenty-two. I've been with people who have had assassination attempts made on them. All of them have a common denominator and it's one crazy bastard who thinks they're owed something, and Andropov is an entitled son of a bitch."

"I know he is. I also know he is not the same man I dated three years ago. I'm being safe Cam."

They were both quiet as he stroked her back in long sweeping motions. Cam looked over in amazement as Casper reached across his pillow to the nightstand and used his paws to tap the base of the lamp and shut the lights out.

Isabella chuckled. "I had him about two weeks, and he started turning the lights out at bedtime. You'll notice all my lamps in the house now are the touch bases and are on tables accessible to chairs he can reach. It comes in very handy when I'm napping on the sofa." "He's a genius."

"He's my best buddy." As if happy with the compliment, Casper let out a big sigh.

"Good night, Isabella."

"Good night, Cam."

Isabella wasn't sure exactly how long she'd been asleep when Cam started shaking her shoulder.

"Isabella, your phone and your watch are going crazy."

She had been in such a deep sleep she hadn't heard either of them for the first time ever. She grimaced and took the phone from him. She answered it, "Hey Lacey, are you okay?"

"I'm fine but," her neighbor paused, "you're not alone, are you?"

She sat up in the bed and pushed her hair off her face as if they were the cobwebs clouding her brain. "No."

"Okay, well I was working on the special project, and I found something. Before I call it in, I'm wondering if you could verify my work."

She knew Cam could hear the conversation in the quiet of the early morning hours and she tried to keep the conversation free of any identifying information. "Absolutely I can. I'm just going to go log into my computer. I have it here in my bedroom."

She crawled down the end of the bed and slipped off, padding quietly to her desk aware Cam was now sitting up watching her with interest. She set the phone on the desktop, "You're on speaker Lacey." She pulled her glasses and laptop from the locked desk drawer and pulled it to her lap, facing Cam so he couldn't see anything on her screen while she sat in the chair.

"Lacey, I'm signing in now."

She allowed her biometric scan to allow her to gain access to the specific location she knew Lacey wanted her to go. "I'm in, please go ahead and send me the information you want me to review."

She reviewed it silently for several minutes, being certain to keep her face neutral and impassive. "Lacey, you were absolutely correct with your analysis of the situation." Lacey had finally cracked the code to a trafficking operation in South America they had been chasing for weeks. With this breakthrough, it was only a matter of hours before Bellona was going to intervene. "Send this to Clara immediately. It's a good catch Lacey. Fantastic work."

"Thanks Isabella. I wasn't sure if I was jumping the gun."

"No, definitely not jumping the gun. You're right to get the second opinion. Call it in." She logged out of her computer and ended the call.

"Do you always get calls at five-thirty in the morning?" Cam asked from where he was propped against the pillows eyeing her critically. "Not always but often enough."

"Draxton Enterprises have people working all night long? Does corporate computer espionage require her to have people working overnights?"

She chuckled as she crawled over him back into the bed. "Clara often jokes hackers are vampires. They do their best work while the rest of the world sleeps. Lacey is a relatively new hire trying to prove herself. Sometimes Clara gives her special projects. She's good at what she does but she second-guesses herself frequently. She's terrified of getting Clara out of bed needlessly. I mean, we all are, but the new recruits doubly so."

"But why call you?"

She looked at him knowing he doubted what she was saying. "Do you not have a go-between for when s**t happens? I bet things go through Gideon before they reach you most of the time."

"Are you Clara's Gideon?"

"Nah, I'm way hotter than Gideon."

"Yes, you are." He chuckled and pulled her back to his chest. "This girl knew you had someone here."

"She lives next door." Isabella gave a shrug against him. "She doesn't miss a trick. She probably was awake working when your car pulled up. When she got through the security system, the first thing she probably did was check to see if the car was still there." Everything she said made logical sense and yet she knew he was still doubting her. She decided distraction techniques were in order. Mutually beneficial ones.

"I usually get up at six. Seems kind of pointless for us to go back to sleep for," she checked her watch, "forty-five minutes. I wonder what we could do to fill in the time?"

"What do you have in mind?" his voice was curious as she stroked her fingers along an intricate pattern on his chest.

"Well, we did have a rather silly argument Thursday evening. It's now Saturday morning. We haven't really properly made up."

He closed his eyes as her lips pressed against his chest, her tongue flicking out to stroke his n****e.

"Isabella," he moaned as she teased him, her hand running possessively down his hard chest towards his waist hidden under her sheets.

"I'm simply saying, we're awake now."

"Oh, I'm definitely awake," he answered hotly as her hand wrapped around him with a firm grip. "You are waking the beast."

"Well, the alternative is for me to go down to the gym and get a workout in but I'm hopeful you can give me a workout far superior to anything I can do on my own. Let's see if I can't get the engine started. Maybe you'll let me be in control for once." "Is this a challenge Isabella?" He was barely maintaining the ability to think as she slid further and further down the sheets to replace the parts of him covered by blankets, her lips warm and wet against his torso and abdomen.

"Do you like a challenge, Torres?" her countenance was wicked as she stared at him from where she was with blankets pulled half over her head.

"You know I do."

He watched with bated breath as she disappeared under the blankets. All thoughts of the phone call vanished from his mind as Isabella thoroughly distracted him from every coherent idea in his brain. It was a hell of a workout.