Tempting Zander Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedications

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

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  About The Author

  Other books by Carole Mortimer

  Knight Security Series 4

  Tempting Zander

  By

  Carole Mortimer

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright © 2017 Carole Mortimer

  Cover Design Copyright © Glass Slipper Designs

  Editor: Linda Ingmanson

  Formatter: Matthew Mortimer

  ISBN: 978-1-910597-42-2 (mobi)

  ISBN: 978-1-910597-43-9 (ePub)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved.

  DEDICATIONS

  Peter

  As Always

  Chapter 1

  “Where the hell have you been for the last four days?”

  A twitch of his left eye was the only visible reaction Zander gave to the woman’s aggressive tone as she stalked off the New York stage toward him. Everyone got out of her way, of course. After all, she was Kate Stewart, the twenty-five-year-old English singer and superstar beloved all over the world.

  She came to a halt in front of him as he stood off to one side of the stage, a snarl twisting the sensuous pout of her lips. “I asked where you disappeared to four days ago within hours of us arriving in Miami, and consequently weren’t here to help in the move to New York yesterday.” As Zander was over six and a half feet tall and Kate only five foot six in her four-inch-heel fuck-me shoes, she had to stand on tiptoe to bring her face to within inches of his.

  As for where he’d been the past four days, that was none of her fucking business. Zander was head of her security detail, yes, but he’d trained with all the men currently working under him, and he had every confidence they were capable of managing without him for a few days. He had made sure to be back in time for the first concert in New York, where her scumbag of an ex-boyfriend lived. The daily reports he had received from Ian said there had been no sighting of Joey Taylor since their arrival in New York yesterday.

  But apparently, bratty Kate Stewart thought Zander owed her some sort of explanation for his absence.

  He nodded. “I heard you.”

  “Well?”

  He glanced down at her. “Well, maybe once you’ve asked that question politely, I’ll consider answering you.”

  She didn’t back down at all. “You’ll consider answering me?”

  Neither did Zander. “Yes.”

  Her dark gray eyes flashed her displeasure. “The last I heard, we were paying Knight Security for your services, not for you to go swanning off to God knows where whenever the hell you feel like it.”

  “So fire me.” Do it. For the love of God do it and put me out of my misery!

  “Fuck you!”

  Zander bared his teeth in a challenging smile. “In your dreams.”

  They continued to glare at each other for several tense seconds, the rest of the people milling about at the side and back of the stage seeming to realize they were having a heated conversation, and wisely giving them a wide berth.

  Zander’s eyes clashed with her challenging ones.

  Bodyguard and client.

  Employee and superstar.

  Zander had no idea what he’d done to deserve being put in charge of the personal protection of superstar Kate Stewart after her ex-boyfriend supposedly began making threatening phone calls and stalking her. Supposedly, as Zander had yet to see any proof of that. There had been no threatening phone calls or sightings of Joey Taylor during the four months Zander and his men had been protecting her.

  Even so, this had to be the worst assignment Gabriel Knight, Zander’s friend and CEO of Knight Security, had ever given him.

  Partly because Kate Stewart had to be the most temperamental woman on the planet. In regard to him, at least. She didn’t seem to have the same attitude with the other men working her security detail. Or anyone else for that matter. Just him.

  Lucky, lucky me.

  But mainly because, at the age of thirty-five, Zander had never wanted a woman so fucking badly in his life as he wanted Kate Stewart.

  Which he knew was utterly stupid on his part. Not only was there an unwritten company rule, do not become personally involved with a client, but Kate was a superstar and worth millions. Even if the attraction was reciprocated, which it wasn’t, the chances of her being interested in someone like Zander were negligible.

  Not that it made a damned bit of difference to the way he became aroused every time he was anywhere near her. Hell, he only had to think about those pert breasts and her tight little ass in the leather trousers she favored on stage, and his mouth salivated and his dick got hard.

  Even now, with that little spitfire completely in his face and space, and refusing to back down, he could feel the hardness of his engorged cock pressing behind the zip of his dark suit trousers. Zander knew from experience he would probably have the indentation of that zip all the way down his cock when he undressed in his hotel bedroom later tonight. It had been this way every time Zander had been within touching distance of Kate since he began this assignment four months ago.

  Four fucking months…

  Or rather, no fucking, because once Kate had burrowed herself beneath his skin, Zander hadn’t wanted to bed another woman.

  Four long fucking months.

  The tour had started in England. Then Asia and the Far East. Then Miami, now New York. In a couple of days, they were flying to Calgary and then Vancouver. After that, it was back to Europe, with the final concert in London. In all those places, the concerts had been completely sold out for months in advance.

  Zander could only admire Kate’s stamina. She never failed to step out on that stage and give the fans value for their money night after night. Even when she had a stomach bug in Singapore, she had simply dosed herself up on medicine and then given the performance of her life.

  As he always did when protecting someone, Zander had done his homework on this woman, and he knew her success hadn’t happened overnight. She’d grown up without parents and been shifted from orphanage to foster care on a regular basis. Once she was old enough, she’d moved out and lived on her own, and then spent several years working as a waitress and singing in English clubs and bars. Until Bernie Cook, manager to several successful bands, saw her performing one night five years ago and offered to take her on too. Kate hadn’t looked back since.

  Her beautiful face adorned newspapers and glossy magazines on a daily basis. Currently, she had to be the most photographed woman in the world, topping even the most glamorous of the royals.

  She had just come offstage after another explosively successful concert at one of New York’s leading venues—the fans were still out front chanting her name and stamping their feet and refusing to go home until she came back on stage and sang them one more song.

  Her long glossy blonde hair clung damply to her forehead and neck. There was a sheen of perspiration over her bare sh
oulders and bared midriff beneath the sparkling black cropped tank top that barely covered her pert breasts and hard, pointy nipples.

  Even sweaty and exhausted and slightly bedraggled, she was the sexiest and most desirable woman Zander had ever set eyes on.

  She would probably look exactly like this after several hours of wild and satisfying sex.

  Zander could all too easily imagine himself being the other half of that sweaty duo.

  Which was a definite no-no.

  Desire impaired judgment.

  Arousal distracted the finely honed senses that alerted him to danger.

  It also takes all the blood to my head in the south, rather than staying in the north, where it’s needed.

  North was where it should be if Zander was going to think coolly enough to do his job properly.

  As Kate accused, Zander had flown back to New York from England only today. He had been called away to help rescue a woman who had been abducted and was about to be sold off as a sex slave to some rich bastard. When it involved one of their own from Knight Security, which in this case it had, then everything else was put on hold until the danger was over.

  After almost forty-eight hours without rest or sleep, Zander had been jet-lagged to start with, and now he was thoroughly pissed at Kate’s aggressive attitude. His patience with her—and his irritation with having this constant bloody hard-on around her—had come to an end. “Get the fuck out of my face,” he growled.

  Her eyes widened, but she didn’t move by so much as a centimeter. “Or what?” she challenged.

  “Or you’ll find yourself over my knee having your ass spanked!”

  “Best offer I’ve had all day,” she taunted.

  “It’s the only offer you’ll get from me, today or any other day.”

  Kate moved in closer, until she was able to rub the heat of her mound along the thick length of Zander’s arousal. “Sure about that?”

  “Get the hell away from me.” Zander grasped the tops of her arms but didn’t put her away from him.

  He had large and yet somehow elegant hands that Kate had all too often imagined roaming over her body. Touching her everywhere. Caressing her. Arousing her.

  “I’ll consider moving once you’ve told me where you’ve been.” It was four days since she’d last seen Zander, after months of having him constantly underfoot. She’d gotten used to him being around. A permanent fixture. Having him just up and disappear that way, without explanation, had made her cranky. Nor had she felt the inclination to ask any of his men where he was. That would have smacked of being needy, and the one thing Kate had never allowed herself to be was needy.

  “Obviously I had somewhere else I needed to be.”

  “Another damsel in distress that needed rescuing?”

  His eyes narrowed at her taunting tone. “As it happens, yes.”

  She dropped her smart-mouthed attitude, knowing by the growl in Zander’s voice that he was being serious. “Is she okay?”

  “She will be.”

  Kate wanted to ask for more details, but she could tell by Zander’s closed-off expression that he had told her all he was going to on the subject.

  Instead, they continued to stare into each other’s eyes for several long—and sexually charged—seconds, both breathing shallowly as the seconds ticked by and that tension between them grew. The noise and the other people around them faded away, and there was only the two of them, and the heat of that sexual tension.

  Kate had been attracted to this man the first time she met him.

  Probably ten years older than her, the enigmatic Zander Buchanan was maybe an inch over six and a half feet of pure muscle and equally hard good looks. He had wide and muscular shoulders and chest, a tapered waist, and thighs like tree trunks. His shoulder-length, silky blond hair always looked as if it needed brushing. He had the deepest blue eyes she’d ever seen, a sharp blade of a nose, high cheekbones, and a strong jaw that more often than not had a designer stubble on it. And a sensual mouth that was surely meant for things other than goading her into being rude or challenging him every chance she got.

  Kate had found herself wondering, at the most inconvenient of times, whether or not there were any tattoos on that hard body. Zander looked like the sort of badass who would have tattoos.

  When they were still in England, he’d driven a huge beast of a motorbike Kate had watched him park outside her apartment building several times. It had been purely by chance the first time she saw him, but after that, she always made a point of looking out the window when she knew Zander was expected. He was always wearing leathers when he arrived, which molded to the hard, muscular contours of his body and left very little to the imagination. But by the time he arrived at her apartment, he was invariably wearing a conservative dark suit, with a gray shirt and gray-striped tie.

  The fact that he more often than not looked disdainfully down that sharp blade of a nose at her hadn’t lessened Kate’s attraction to him one little bit.

  Zander had made it clear from the beginning he only tolerated being in her presence. That the only reason he was here at all was because the company he worked for had been contracted as extra security for her after her ex-boyfriend started threatening her.

  In fact, tonight was the first time she’d been this close to Zander. So close she could feel the hardness of his erection and breathe in the citrus-and-spice aroma of his cologne, and the insidious male musk that was pure Zander.

  It was the first time he’d touch her too.

  Those large, capable hands were as warm and strong against her skin as she’d imagined they would be, sending goose bumps along her arms and a thrill of sexual awareness down her spine. An awareness that spiked between her thighs, igniting little time bombs of excitement that caused her clit to swell and her pussy to dampen.

  “Time to go back on stage, Kate. Kate?” Bernie appeared at her side when she didn’t respond. “Is there a problem?” He looked from one to the other of them when he received no response.

  “No.” Zander let her go and stepped away.

  He released her so suddenly, Kate stumbled in her high heels before putting her hand on the wall to regain her balance. “Bastard.” She glared up at Zander as he made no effort to assist her.

  He shrugged. “Maybe if you didn’t wear shoes with heels as high as stilts…”

  Her eyes narrowed. “These are part of my stage costume.”

  He glanced moved slowly down her leather-clad hips and legs until he reached her shoes. “They look ridiculous.”

  Kate’s chin rose in challenge. “Well, you always look as if you have a stick stuck up your superior ass, but I don’t comment on that, do I?”

  He smiled tightly. “You just did.”

  “Now, Kate!” Bernie prompted pointedly.

  “Okay.” She closed her eyes to give herself several seconds to gather herself together before going back on stage for the encore the fans were crying out for. As she knew from experience, they weren’t going to leave until they got it. She looked straight at Zander when she opened her eyes again. “I want you to be the one to drive me back to the hotel tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “You have to go back to the hotel too, so why not?”

  A nerve pulsed in his tensed jaw. “One of my men usually drives you.”

  “So tonight you’ll do the driving instead.”

  His nostrils flared. “As you said, you’re the one paying the bills.”

  Color warmed her cheeks at his sarcasm, but her chin remained at a challenging angle. “Is that a yes?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

  She gave a dazzling smile as she turned to the impatiently waiting Bernie. “Okay, I’m ready to go back onstage now.”

  “About bloody time!” he muttered. “We’re going to have a riot on our hands otherwise.”

  Kate gave him an unconcerned grin before running back onto the stage as her band began to play the lead song from her latest album, much to the deligh
t of the screaming, clapping, foot-stomping fans.

  Zander waited only long enough for Kate to be back behind the microphone in front of her audience before he slumped back against the wall.

  Why the hell had he said yes to driving her back to their hotel tonight?

  “Are you going to actually say anything, or just sit there and scowl for the whole journey?”

  Zander counted to ten. Slowly. Not only was he driving Kate back to their hotel, but she’d insisted on sitting beside him in the front of the car rather than the back, where she belonged.

  Where Zander thought she belonged, at least. Kate had other ideas.

  Zander had known he was in trouble with this woman from the get-go. Because of that, he had ensured it was his men who guarded her twenty-four seven, rather than him personally. Tonight he had thought he should at least put in an appearance at the venue after his four days’ absence. It was a decision he deeply regretted making.

  Ordinarily, his role was to check venues and danger spots for transporting Kate to and from the concerts. It wasn’t always possible for him to avoid her, of course, because the eight men in the detail had downtime and holidays, and sometimes they were called away urgently to help out on other jobs. As he had been.

  He shrugged. “I’m tired.” It was almost one o’clock in the morning, and he’d now been awake for over forty-eight hours.

  Not so unusual in his line of work, but he had been already been feeling tired when he arrived at the venue during the back end of Kate’s concert. Then he’d had that altercation with Kate, followed by hanging around for another hour or so after the concert finished, while she showered and changed before being ready to leave.

  Her hair was still slightly damp from that shower, and she looked younger without the heavy stage makeup. She’d also removed the fuck-me shoes and now wore flats, and had changed out of the clinging leather trousers and barely-there top into low-rider jeans and a T-shirt that fit her so snugly, it was obvious she still wasn’t wearing a bra.