Calling in a Recker: Chosen Book 26 Read online

  Copyright © 2019 J.D. Light

  Edited by Ann Attwood Editing and Proofreading Services

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  NEXT UP IN THE SERIES:

  MEET ALL MY BOOKS!

  Chapter One

  Step, step, step, spin, step, step, step, spin, repeat. Chuckle, roll eyes affectionately.

  I glared at my new bodyguard, who wasn't even paying attention to me, from the other side of the window, unreasonably pissed that somebody in this world had the ability to make him smile and even laugh.

  Wasn't he supposed to keep an eye on me at all times? Somebody could walk up and grab me right now and he'd be too wrapped up in the asshole on the phone to even notice.

  Maybe I should hide. He'd come back in and panic when I wasn't here, and I could bitch at him for being bad at his job.

  He hung up the phone and put it back in his pocket, before turning and meeting my eyes through the window. Piercing white blue. It was like a cattle prod to the butterflies in my belly every time he looked at me. He riled the masses. It was like a Papillion stampede.

  Come to think of it, it was probably moths. In fact, I preferred moths. Otherwise, my ass would probably end up with those carnivorous butterflies and be eaten from the inside out… and it would be all Recker-Recker-Po-Pecker's fault, and his laser-beam eyeballs.

  I blinked rapidly, just hoping I hadn't gone cross-eyed with my dazed-out self, and sent him a sassy wave and a bright smile. He, in turn, took a deep steadying breath that made it look like he was about to be dragged through the depths of hell and the idea annoyed the hell out of him, then he made his way back into the cottage.

  It was my home away from home. Okay, it was my home away from the hotel room I rented by the month in Vancouver, or the other one I rented in Los Angeles, because now that I was working on two different shows in two different cities, and neither was where I necessarily wanted to purchase real estate, I didn't really see the point in going through the headache of trying to look, or even hiring someone to do it for me, since they'd still have to ask me questions, and I honestly just didn't give a flying fuck.

  "Who was that?" I asked, using my head to indicate the phone in his back pocket. You know, I pointed with my nose. Or maybe I pointed with my chin. Either way, I tilted my head in an awkward fashion that apparently was a universal pointer that people seemed to decipher as such, even though, I was pretty sure if he hadn't just gotten off the phone he'd just think I was tweaking, or showing him how lovely my neck was.

  He gave a one-shouldered shrug that I was not gonna lie, irritated me on some level… like, every level.

  I'd just seen him smile and laugh, and even roll his eyes at somebody, but I barely got an expression at all and his non-comments were really starting to piss me off.

  "You get a tick?" I asked, like a snarky little asshole.

  "No."

  "Oh, so you just don't know who you were talking to?"

  His mouth twitched slightly, almost like a smile… but also like he had an itch. "It was just one of my friends."

  "Why do you always go to the other room or outside when you talk to your friends?"

  I knew I really didn't have a right to those answers since he was just my bodyguard, but I could totally play this off as needing to make sure he wasn't conspiring behind my back with my enemy… if I needed to.

  He raised both eyebrows and smirked slightly… like, super slightly… like he barely even curled one side of his mouth, but somehow, I knew he was sassing me with his face.

  Or maybe I was just being super cranky.

  "Because I have secrets to tell them… about you," he said, face neutral, which honestly made it really hard to tell if he was being serious or not, and made me even more suspicious about this sassing thing.

  I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out his expression, and coming up with nothing new… because I was neither a mind reader nor a psychic. "Are you sure it's not a girlfriend?"

  That time I was sure his lips twitched, and equally sure he was making fun of me in some way. Like he was in on a joke I wasn't… probably because I was the butt of it.

  "Pretty sure," he said, his deep voice sounding incredibly condescending.

  I drummed my fingers on my calf where I had one leg crossed over the other one with my ankle resting on my knee, still in my pajamas, even though it was like…

  Where did I put my watch? It didn't matter. The clock on the wall said it was after three.

  Apparently, I was going to be really productive on this time off I'd decided to take. I'd blamed it on the fact that I'd had a pretty rough run-in with some people after my worthless bodyguards at the time had actually thrown me into the middle of danger. Literally. The big oaf who'd been near to attacking a fan that had been pushed from behind and nearly knocked me over, and I'd stepped between them, and that asshole had picked me up and tossed me into a group of people.

  It honestly hadn't really scared me that much, but my agent, who also happened to be a pretty good friend, had lost it. She'd fired the men on the spot and demanded I take a mental health break.

  I didn't feel like I needed it, but I wasn't going to fight her on me getting a break. I was pretty sick of the back and forth traveling, and the near-constant presence of someone who spent far too much time in my personal space. It was like I was drowning in well-meaning, over-helpful people, who seemed to think I didn't know how to hold my own dick when I went for a piss.

  I mean, sure, it was a hefty bitch, but I'd somehow managed not to get a stress fracture in my wrist for the first twenty-three years of my life, I could probably still manage.

  "What about a boyfriend?" I asked after a moment, wondering just how stupid I looked when I dazed out like that.

  Normally, I wouldn't care, but this was fucking Recker, who sat around with his I'm making fun of you for something you don't even know about smirk.

  "Don't have one of those either," he said, easing a hip against the corner of the couch with his arms crossed over his chest.

  He looked sexy as hell standing like that, which really wasn't anything new. The one thing that had been a little tough to get used to since the new bodyguard came around… No, fuck that, everything had been hard to get used to.

  He was like three hundred times hotter than was necessary for a bodyguard, since I seriously wasn't trying to pull a Kim Kardashian—my name was in the news enough. He was also as strict as that fucking teacher that made you hold your pee so long you ended up with a urinary tract infection in second grade.

  That didn't actually happen to me, but I had a friend that bitched about that teacher all the time. Had being the operative word. Friends were a luxury I didn't necessarily have anymore between my extreme annoyingness and my super-busy schedule.

  "Why?" I asked simply.

  I mean, objectively speaking, the man was a pretty fucking awesome package. Was that being objective? I mentally shrugged. I was kind of objectifying him. Same-same.

  Either way, the man was way too hot and way too put together to be single.

  Unless he liked being single. There were a lot of guys out there who did. Was Recker a secret player?

  Somehow, I didn't think so. He just seemed too respectful for that. He might treat me like I was a death sentence much of the time, and only let me see like a fifth of the charm he used on his friend on the phone, but he was always super respectful and logical about things. And not at all in the boss-employee way.

  More, he just listened when I went on one of my nonsense rants, and calmly––AKA annoyingly if you asked me––helped me reaso
n shit out.

  It wasn't really a surprise I needed help organizing my thoughts. They were a runaway mess on my best days.

  "You're awfully inquisitive today," Recker said, narrowing his eyes on me. "Are you bored or something?"

  I scrunched my nose, plopping sideways on the couch and spinning until my legs were over the back and my head was hanging off the front.

  "No, I just don't like being left out of things."

  Even upside down, his face with a big nothing in the way of expression. There was no frown to turn upside down. His mouth was basically a straight line like a neutral face emoji.

  He shook his head, making me squint, since I thought his mouth might have actually twitched up toward a smile, or something. "No, you're just a nosy little shit."

  I groaned, rolling my eyes and pulling one leg from the back of the couch to point my barefoot over at him. "When I decided on taking a break, I didn't realize a break was gonna be so fucking boring. You should take me somewhere to have fun."

  "Ha, I knew you were bored." He reached out and smacked my foot before crossing his arms back over his chest. "What is something fun?"

  I blinked at him, not completely sure if he actually didn't know the definition of fun. I hadn't seen much evidence to support him actually understanding the concept at all. I was worried he might actually think it involved reading of non-fiction books or something.

  "I was thinking trampoline park."

  He blinked, looking at me like he was trying to figure out what I actually meant. Like I'm pretty sure he thought trampoline park was a euphemism for… Who knows what serious people thought trampoline park would be a euphemism for? I didn't have the time or the patience to reach that type of boredom level where I might stumble across the ability to understand serious people’s euphemisms.

  I pointed my foot at him again. "Come on, it'll be fun."

  Reaching out faster than seemed possible, he snagged my ankle, jerking me around on the couch, practically lifting me off the thing with his arm extended out like that––which I knew was hard, because my lateral raises started getting really floppy and I almost looked like a fucking bird when I picked up the fifteens. I was every bit of a hundred and fifty-five pounds, so I knew that shit wasn't easy––and suddenly I was looking up at him, blinking in surprise.

  "Fun for who exactly?" He repositioned his stance, putting his hands on the back of the couch and leaning over it to look down at me. "Not fun for me if I'm trying to keep you safe."

  I scrambled trying to maneuver myself into a sitting position, nearly rolling off the couch on my head, but somehow catching myself and doing a pretty badass somersault. When I was finally settled, I was facing him, looking up into his laser-beam eyeballs... which were incredibly close to my face in that position. Like, I could make out the slight smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose.

  I swallowed, my gaze gobbling up the sight of him that close. I knew my mouth was hanging open, probably inviting all sorts of creatures inside since it was summertime in the middle of the fucking woods. At least, with my eyes moving over him, so they weren't crossing, and I didn't feel any drool on my face, but there wasn't much of a breeze, so maybe I wouldn't know one way or another on that until I turned on a fan or went outside… or maybe I should just wipe my chin just in case.

  He cleared his throat, and I blinked, once again meeting his gaze and still seeing his half a smirk––a smirking, smirk––out of the bottom of my eyes, once again making me feel like I was missing out on something. Like, he knew a secret I didn't know.

  "Listen, nobody's trying to shoot me or anything like that. Your job is basically to keep people from mauling me." I batted my eyelashes at him, smiling as sweetly as I possibly could. "You can do that by being right by my side while we're playing at the trampoline park."

  He made a face, and not a friendly one, curling his lip like I'd asked him to eat a bag full of dung beetles without a chaser or something, instead of simply asking him to have a little fun.

  "Do you know how long it's been since I played?" he asked dryly, making me want to bash my own face in with the lamp that was within an arm's reach of me.

  How could somebody survive day-to-day life without a little fun? What the hell was the point?

  I rocked up on my knees, smirking when I watched his whole body stiffen. I'd discovered a few times before how uncomfortable he seemed to get when I got too close, or said something that could even be construed as flirting, and to add to my mind's amazingly ridiculous ability to go off on nonsensical tangents that even I wasn't sure how I managed to get from A to O sometimes, I also had a picking problem.

  Not necessarily my nose… usually, or scabs, because ow. But sometimes––like right then––when I was presented with the beautiful opportunity to get under someone's skin, I took it. Like, I really, really took it.

  I should be a better person. Maybe people would like me more if I wasn't so fucking annoying, but I'd done a lot of self-actualization over the last few years on my long, lonely flights and car rides, and I realized I kinda liked myself. Even the weird stuff. And if I never made any friends that could actually be bothered to spend time with me, then I'd just continue on like I had for the last three years.

  "By the pure joy on your face, I'd say about a hundred years," I said quietly, trying not to laugh at the fact that he clearly wanted to back up, but he also didn't want to give me the satisfaction.

  He was a stubborn ass sometimes, and for some reason I found that incredibly attractive. Like, between me having put myself within lip-touching distance if I leaned up just a hair, making the air crackle with tension, and the stubborn set of his straight-line lips, I could feel my body tensing with the need to just fucking do something that would get a part of me touching a part of him. Any fucking part.

  I licked my lips, and his eyes caught and followed the movement, his eyes setting my lips on fire with their laser-beam focus.

  There was a long, charged moment where I was almost positive he was going to press his lips to mine. I could feel the tingles of intent against my mouth, and my fucking heart rate was dangerously high.

  He cleared his throat, pulling his head back slightly, and I tried not to show my disappointment, choosing to smile instead, because apparently, the thought of kissing me was enough to make him give up on his stubborn resolve to not retreat.

  Great. That's exactly what I was going for. Yep. I wanted him to pull back. I hadn't been hoping for that kiss.

  "Closer to a hundred and fifteen," he said, once again crossing his arms and leaning against the couch with his hip, showing off the long sexy lines of his body.

  Was that a joke? He'd said it with such a serious face. And did he fucking know what he was doing to me? Was he enjoying the fact that it was probably pretty clear that I had a major thing for my fucking bodyguard? Was that the secret joke he was always looking so secretly smirky about?

  "Well then," I said, reaching up to touch his nose, making a high-pitched boop sound. "I would say now is the perfect time to get started again."

  Chapter Two

  I coughed, trying to hide my laugh, not sure how one man could look so adorable and yet so ridiculous.

  "Do I even want to know what the hair is made of?" I asked, leaning closer to get a better look at the tiny pieces that were somehow adhered to his handsome face. It would have probably been a fairly convincing fake beard if it wasn't for the fact that it was nearly platinum blond while the rest of his hair was a shiny chestnut.

  He shrugged, reaching up to stroke it, cringing when some of it came off on his fingers. "I stole it from my makeup artist. I chose not to ask where one acquired short coarse hair."

  The trampoline park was, thankfully, not incredibly crowded, but I figured that was because most schools in the area had probably started up already. So, it was only us and about a dozen other people running around the fairly large facility. I felt like I could easily keep track of this many people, and whether or no
t they meant to do my mate harm.

  Yeah. Mate. He was my mate. I'd had a sneaking suspicion when I'd left Crossville, after walking into that diner where he and his manager had met me that first day, and getting hit in the face with the most amazing scent I'd ever smelled in my life.

  Kennedy's exuberant energy was charming, and I had to reach out and hang on to him as he was barely able to contain his excitement long enough for me to pay for the both of us and put our socks on, before scrambling up the stairs to the platform and immediately bouncing from trampoline to trampoline.

  I had resigned myself to standing on the platform, like the rest of the parents patiently watching their kids while wishing they had the energy to jump themselves, but when he came flying off the trampoline in my direction, my stomach dropped. All I could think about was him landing funny and hurting his ankle or knee. So, I reached out and caught him.

  He looked up into my eyes, and I was confused by the mischievous look there for all of a second and a half before he was wrapping his arms around me and jumping backward, pulling me with him, until we landed in a bouncing mass on one of the trampolines.

  I managed to realize what was going on quick enough to turn us so that his much smaller frame landed on top of me, instead of me landing on top of him and squishing him, and I grunted as the air whooshed out of me.

  "Are you okay?" I asked, immediately rolling us and pulling back just far enough so that I could get a better look at him.

  I blinked down into his smiling face, sighing heavily when it was clear he was fine and quite proud of himself.

  "What were you thinking?" I grumbled, settling the hand that had been fluttering around his face while I was checking him out onto his hip. "I could've squished you."

  "I was thinking," he said, raising unimpressed eyebrows in the air. "Your secondhand-boring is really getting me down. Why would you come to the trampoline park and stand there just watching? You should at least try to have fun."

  I grunted out a small laugh at just how hard he was trying to get me to jump on the damn trampoline, shaking my head. "I was doing my job, which is to look out for you. I can do that from the plank."