The Brat, the Bodyguard, and the Bounty Hunter Read online

  “Good girl,” Harris said, taking her by the hand. “Let’s go catch that plane.”

  * * *

  Holy hell. Harris had a hand like iron. Fiona had not expected to discover that outside JFK. She’d had hopes for getting him naked at some point, but she’d never in a million years considered the idea that he might hit her.

  Now he was pulling her through the airport, a determined expression on his handsome face. Yeah, Harris was hot. Tall, dark and handsome. It was one of the reasons she’d hired him. He had that sexy military look, clean cut, clean shaven, a certain look in his eye. That look had been amplified after the smacking. In fact, everything about him had been amplified after the smacking, which was why she wasn’t firing his ass. Looking up into his face, Fiona couldn’t help but admire the dark, hawkish line of his brow and the high rise of his cheekbones. His face was on the slim side, but was no less masculine for it.

  Fiona was curious. She wasn’t often curious. Life had taken on a certain pall in recent years. There had been little new in the world. She’d traveled everywhere she cared to travel, purchased all the toys she wished to own and had closets upon closets full of clothes, most of which she had never worn, much of which she never would. Even being on the lam had lost its appeal fairly quickly. A life on the run was just like an extended holiday. With millions of dollars at her disposal, Fiona was quite aware that she could run until the end of time if she so desired.

  God only knew why they were flying with the general public. That was a change she didn’t approve of at all. Sharing a plane with hundreds of people seemed like a very bad idea to her. A most undesirable change of circumstances. She should never have let Harris book the flight.

  “We need to get in line,” Harris was saying. She looked up at him. She was always looking up at him, because she was 5’3 and he was at least 6’3. A whole foot taller than her. From the moment they met, she’d felt safe in his presence, comfortable too.

  Now she wasn’t so sure about that. Now her bottom was stinging, as was her pride. He’d smacked her. On the bottom. In front of dozens and dozens of people. It was New York, after all.

  Standing in line, Fiona frowned to herself. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d stood in a line. Ladies of her standing and stature did not stand in lines. They were swept through the first class way.

  “Why are we here with the normal people?”

  “Practice,” Harris said. He wasn’t looking at her, he was scanning the surroundings. He often did that. Sometimes she thought he looked a little like a watchful meerkat, if meerkats were built like agile American Gladiators.

  “Practice?”

  “Practice being normal.”

  “I’ll never be normal,” she said with a toss of her head. “How dare you suggest otherwise.”

  She was kidding, but he didn’t know that. There was an expectation that went with being Fiona Fayrefield, and she played up to it. It made things easier in a myriad of ways. Normally she didn’t care that people thought she was a spoiled bitch, but suddenly that perception seemed to be causing static with the bodyguard.

  “Take your shoes off.”

  “My shoes?” She squinted up at Harris. “What?”

  “Take your shoes off and put them in the plastic tray.” He gestured toward a battered looking container sitting next to a conveyor belt. Fiona had never seen anything so very pedestrian in all her days.

  “These shoes cost ten thousand dollars. I am not putting them in a plastic tray.”

  Harris’s lips thinned and his jaw went extra square. He was annoyed again, but this time he was wrong.

  “Ma’am, put your shoes in the tray.” Now a security officer in a stuffy white shirt with sweat stained lapels was giving her the order.

  “These aren’t tray shoes,” she said to the lady with the frizzy hair and the matronly bosom. “These are Prada.”

  “Prada them in the tray,” the woman deadpanned.

  “Take your shoes off,” Harris repeated.

  Fiona was not at all pleased with the predicament she’d been put in. Her shoes did not belong on the conveyor belt of the mundane.

  As seconds turned into a minute, the security woman sighed. “Ma’am, please step over here.”

  Fiona shot Harris a triumphant look to say, see, the normal rules do not apply to me.

  “You’ve been selected for additional screening,” the security officer said. “Please extend your arms.”

  In less than ten minutes, Fiona had discovered a whole new world of petty humiliations. Surrounded by dour faced peons, she was starting to become rather agitated. If he’d let her smoke the joint, she might have been able to relax. As it was, she was getting very tense.

  “Ma’am, lift your arms up.”

  Fiona stared at the woman. She had certainly never been told what to do by a person wearing polyester. Then she glared at Harris. “We should have gone through the first class security,” she said. “At least the people there know how to be polite.”

  “You’ll have to excuse her,” Harris said, not to Fiona, but to the woman at the security checkpoint. “She’s incredibly spoiled and overdue for her afternoon spanking.”

  The woman snorted with laughter and began to pat Fiona down, sliding her hand all the way up between her thighs.

  “Dear lord, woman, what are you doing!”

  Harris caught Fiona’s hand just before she could swat at the lady.

  “Her job. A job which would have been unnecessary if you’d taken your shoes off. Now hush.”

  “She’s touching me!”

  “I’ll touch you in a minute,” he threatened.

  That was enough to make Fiona stop and stare at him all over again. What had gotten into Harris? Since they’d met he’d been a little stern and a lot standoffish. Now all of a sudden he was taking charge. Fiona wasn’t sure she liked that. She also wasn’t sure she didn’t.

  Chapter Three

  “They had gloves,” Fiona shuddered, “rubber gloves. They were going to use them on my person.” She lowered her voice. “Intimately.”

  “That’s what you get when you argue with the TSA,” Harris murmured, flicking through channels on the in-flight entertainment. His mind was not on Fiona’s whining, but on the presence he’d sensed in the airport. They were being followed by someone. His instincts told him that. Now that they were on the plane, the prickling sensation had abated. Maybe they’d given their stalker the slip for the moment, but it wouldn’t be difficult to find out where their plane was headed. Harris fully expected to have to lose their tail again in Milan. That meant dropping the planned reservation and finding a new hotel, which meant…

  “The TSA? Is that what that gang of thugs are called?” Fiona interrupted his thoughts with her strident whine. “When I get back, I’m having them all fired. Bad enough that I should have to travel like cattle…”

  She said the words while clutching a flute of complimentary champagne in one hand, and sitting in a broad, fully reclineable seat. There were only two other passengers in first class and they were located on the opposite rear side of the cabin. For all intents and purposes, they had the place to themselves.

  Harris did not respond. The ridiculous whining was tiresome and he needed to get some rest. They had eight hours before they were in Milan, more than long enough to get some sleep. He’d taken the aisle seat, so if Fiona was going to get past him, she’d have to wake him up first.

  “Harris,” she said in the dark void of his closed eyes. “Harris, what are you doing?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Well don’t sleep, who will I talk to?”

  Harris opened one eye. Fiona never evinced any interest in talking to him before. Usually she was too busy being a screaming drunk with one of her many coteries of pop up ‘friends’ who gathered around her like condensation on a cold drink. Harris had never heard as much high pitched screaming related to mundane events as he had in the past two
weeks. There were bombs that could land and cause less mayhem than a handful of spoiled young adults.

  “What do you want to talk about, Fiona?”

  She looked at him and chewed her lower lip. “Let’s talk about what happened out front of the airport. Let’s talk about what you did.”

  “Spanked you?”

  “Yes. Precisely. What gave you the idea you could do that?”

  “I did it because you deserved it,” he said firmly. “And, if you deserve it again, I’ll do it again.”

  “Really?” A half smile rose to her lips. She thought it was a game. The sting had already worn off and now it was nothing more than a novelty to her, like a turtle shell lipstick holder, or a dress that lit up under black light.

  “Spankings hurt, Fiona,” he warned her. “If I have to do it again, you won’t like it.”

  “Oh,” she said, playing along. “And what would I have to do… I mean… why would you do it again?”

  Harris groaned, but quietly and on the inside. “Listen, Fiona, as long as you behave yourself, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  She didn’t want to hear that. “But what does that mean, behave myself?” She reached over and poked him gently in his midsection. “Am I behaving myself now?”

  She was not behaving herself, not really. She was winding up for something. Something she wouldn’t like.

  “Fiona,” he said firmly, opening both eyes to give her the full force of his stern stare. “If I have to spank you again, it will hurt. I won’t swat you once. I’ll bare your bottom and spank it red, understand?”

  “Kinky,” she giggled, not understanding at all.

  God. It was like she had puppy mixed into her DNA somewhere. When she was interested in something, she had a bouncy tenacity that just would not quit. He’d made a significant tactical error introducing her to the concept of discipline just before getting on the plane. Now there was an eight-hour stretch during which her curiosity would grow and her energy would decline and… Harris very much doubted they would make it to Milan without a tantrum of some sort. Fiona was famous for them. She was the quintessential drunk girl crying on the curb, although it did tend to be a better class of curb than the ones other drunk girls sat upon, wailing their woes to the night.

  He closed his eyes again, but felt her walking her fingers along his chest. She was getting handsy now. In theory, he didn’t mind. In practice, this was not an appropriate dynamic at all.

  “Hands to yourself, Fiona,” he said, gently but firmly returning her hand to her lap.

  “You didn’t keep your hands to yourself,” she pointed out.

  “That was different. I was disciplining you.”

  “Oh.” There was a pause and then Harris felt a hard sting land across his face. She’d slapped him. His eyes flew open, his teeth clenched in a growl as he leaned over and took both her wrists in his hands.

  “Listen to me, girl,” he growled. “You do not ever raise a hand to me.”

  “You raised one to me.”

  “Because you deserved it. I did not. I was sitting there, minding my own business.”

  “You were ignoring me,” she said bluntly. “So I decided to discipline you.”

  Oh God, he’d unleashed a monster. A whip-smart monster with no concept of personal boundaries. What the hell was he going to do with her several hundred miles above the Atlantic?

  “There are rules,” he said. “The first one is, I do the disciplining. The second one is, you do not hit me, ever, unless you want to feel my belt across your bottom.”

  “Your belt, huh?” She was grinning. It was all a game to her. It wouldn’t be a game when he got her to their hotel room, peeled down those leggings, and belabored her bottom.

  “You wait until we get to the hotel,” he said grimly. “I’ll show you what it means to be spanked, young lady.”

  Fiona grinned and squirmed in her seat. She was adorable, in her own excessively misbehaved way. The slap would have been unforgivable coming from almost anyone else, but Fiona really didn’t know any better. She’d learn, though. He had absolutely no intention of letting that slide.

  “Tell you what,” he said, letting her hands go. “We’ll call a truce until we get to the hotel. You keep your hands to yourself. I’ll keep mine to myself, and we’ll sort it all out in Milan.”

  She cocked her head to the side and grinned. “You’re just saying that because you can’t do anything on the plane.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “And I’m saving you the trouble of writing checks your bottom won’t be able to cash.”

  “I can always cash my checks,” Fiona replied. For a second, he thought she might have misunderstood the metaphor. Then her knowing grin told him that she hadn’t misunderstood at all.

  * * *

  Fiona had never been so excited to land in Milan before. She’d lost count of the times she’d been to the fashion capital of Italy, usually to go on a shopping spree, but this time was different. This time she was arriving in Milan as a fugitive. She made a mental note to buy some fugitive type clothes. Dark glasses, shadowy dresses, that sort of thing.

  Harris had become infinitely more interesting in the past eight hours. Though she stuck to the terms of the truce, she had been eager to see what would happen when they reached their hotel room. And now they were there, porters were dropping off her luggage and then… she was alone. Alone with Harris.

  Like many things in Italy, the hotel looked not at all impressive from the outside. On the inside, however, her room was painted with frescoes across the ceilings and walls, the floor was tiled with rare stone, and the furniture was both exquisite and old. Her room was no exception.

  She always felt like a princess in Milan. Something about the age of the place. It had an ambiance that nowhere in the United States could match. People had been walking the streets outside for thousands of years. They’d left their imprints in time.

  Italy was Fiona’s favorite country. Each region had its own beauty, its own enchanted charm. Milan was the home of the sophisticate. It was a city for those who knew how to live well.

  Harris looked good here too. He always wore simple dark suits. In New York they’d made him look like a trader, boring. But against the backdrop of angels and soldiers and pretty maidens who romped across the walls, he looked like one of the good Lord’s most elegant creations.

  “You’ll be snapped up by a talent scout if you go out like that,” she said, running an appreciative eye over his body. The shadowy scruff of an unshaven beard added rugged appeal to an already excellent jaw line.

  “We’re not going to go out,” Harris said as he stepped up to take her by the hand. “We’re going to settle a score.”

  “Oh yeah?” She grinned as he pulled her close.

  “You didn’t forget, did you, Fiona?” He murmured the question in her ear, one arm wrapped firmly around her waist.

  She was trapped against him, but she didn’t mind. The hard curve of his hand pressing against the curve of her bottom reminded her of something else that would undoubtedly be hard, once this silly stuff was out of the way.

  “You slapped me on the plane,” he said, hooking a casual finger in the waistband of her leggings. “And now it’s time to pay for that.”

  He was taking control in a most physical way and she could not have been persuaded to resist it. His palm smoothed over the round of her bare skin and she shivered in delight.

  “Come here,” he murmured, drawing her across the room toward the double doors that lead to the bedroom.

  She went with a broad smile on her face. Oh yes, this was going to be interesting. She wondered what Harris looked like without his clothes on. She was pretty sure he’d be ripped, but what sort of ripped? Bodybuilder style? Underwear model? Sinewy soldier? There were so many kinds of different male beauty.

  Harris sat on the bed and crooked his finger at her. She felt a thrill shoot through her tummy and z
ip around her clit in circles.

  “You want me over there?”

  “I want you over my knee,” Harris purred. “I want to give you that spanking you were wanting.”

  “Oh good,” Fiona giggled, tottering over to him on her high heels. “I’ve been a bad girl.”

  “More than you know,” Harris said, extending a hand to her and helping her down over his lap. Fiona had been given the odd love tap by other lovers, but she’d never been subjected to this kind of order. He really was taking it seriously, she thought to herself as the hard ridges of his thigh met the softness of her belly.

  “Now, Fiona,” he said, sliding his hand down to the hem of her tunic. “This is going to hurt.”

  “Uh huh,” she giggled. He was bluffing. It was all part of his little game. She could feel his fingertips trailing down her tightly clad bottom. His touch was gentle, but very sure. Fiona liked that. There was nothing worse than a timid lover.

  The slow moving fingers trailed up to the stretchy elastic of her leggings and began to draw them down. She lifted her hips to help him remove them. It was exciting, being undressed in this authoritarian fashion. Fiona was quite tickled when Harris insisted on pulling her panties down too, settling them about her knees. Soon he was looking at her bare bottom, and touching it too. His hand felt wonderful against her skin, strong fingers moving tenderly.

  She bit her lip and arched her bottom, wanting his fingers to drift lower. Instead of that, however, he wrapped his other hand more firmly around her waist and pressed his spanking palm against her cheeks in preparation for the first slap.

  Clearly, Harris took this sort of thing seriously. Fiona thought that was cute. It wasn’t the most comfortable position for her, especially as she had to support herself with her hands on the floor, but that was alright.

  “This is not going to be pleasant,” he warned. “But you wanted to find out what happens when you hit me, right?” His palm came down hard, blazing against her butt. It was just a single slap, but it shot through Fiona’s bottom and made every muscle in her body go tense for a moment.