The Colonel's Daughter Read online

  Sign: Scorpio

  The sting of this Scorpio is unforgettably hot...

  Ivy Danforth is out from under her Colonel father’s overprotective control, and she’s making it count. Big time. She’s taken the summer off to travel through Australia with her bestie and experiencing all that life has to offer—when you’re not under constant military surveillance. She wants to end her summer with some sexy fun, and she has just the hottie in mind.

  Seth Rodrigo is ex-Special Forces working undercover and keeping an eye on Ivy as a special favor to her father. All he has to do is not give the game away and reveal who he really is. And especially not give into the hunger that’s burning through his careful control...

  Then they’re forced into protective custody. Alone. Together. For four days. And this time, the Colonel’s daughter isn’t taking no for an answer...

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Discover the Men of the Zodiac series… Impulse Control

  The Millionaire’s Deception

  The Millionaire’s Forever

  Ten Days in Tuscany

  The Millionaire Daddy Project

  Revenge Best Served Hot

  The Prince’s Runaway Lover

  No More Mr. Nice Guy

  Ask Me Nicely

  Taming the Tycoon

  ’Tis the Season to be Kissed

  Discover more category romance titles from Entangled Indulgence… Impulse Control

  Her Hot Number

  Beauty and the Bachelor

  One Night with a Cowboy

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

  Copyright © 2015 by Amy Andrews. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 109

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Indulgence is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Liz Pelletier and Candace Havens

  Cover design by Kelley York

  Cover art from Shutterstock

  ISBN 978-1-63375-389-1

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition August 2015

  To Heather Riccio, from Entangled Publishing – total goddess - who has gone above and beyond for me. You rock, Heather!

  Chapter One

  Seth Rodrigo had a real itch up his spine tonight. An instinct that had served him well in his thirty-two years. He’d had it since he’d started working in this dive over two months ago, but it was worse tonight. No matter how crowded the bar or how loud the background music, he just couldn’t shake it.

  Fuck.

  Two weeks. That was all he had left of his twelve-week assignment and it had to ramp up tonight.

  He scanned the heavily populated dance floor, his mind alert for any impending trouble amongst the liquored-up crowd.

  Nothing.

  The exits were clear. No one loitering or misbehaving, no secretive deals being done.

  Nothing.

  Yet, the itch persisted. Probably two and a half months of three a.m. finishes at a crappy club in Sydney’s infamous red light district.

  That shit got old fast.

  His gaze shifted to the long wooden bar. Three waitresses and one waiter served drinks as they struggled to hear orders over the deafening bass and the jostling and shouting of everyone around them.

  The New York Stock Exchange had nothing on this.

  He glanced at the woman with pastel pink hair in the middle of it all. Curvy, big eyes, full mouth painted a bright, come-kiss-me pink. Her lips broke into a broad grin as she handed a drink over and he dragged his eyes away.

  Jesus. You need to get laid, man.

  But God, not her. Not the Colonel’s daughter, the sole reason he was undercover in this Kings Cross shithole in the first place.

  Seth looked again, his gaze deliberately seeking the cute little redhead this time. Petite. Gorgeous. Looked like she knew her way around a man’s body. Perfect. Or the brunette with legs up to her armpits and a very frank stare. Hell, any of about five women, tonight or any given night, that had let him know in no uncertain terms they’d gladly play a while.

  Anyone but Ivy.

  Ivy. Goddamn it. Just her name made him hot.

  So straight-laced and old-fashioned.

  And in a lot of ways she was, smiling and glancing at him shyly, peeking out from under that glossy pink fringe when she thought he wasn’t watching. Awkward when she spoke to him, but confident around her peers and with the customers. Witty and friendly with a low, husky laugh that made his balls ache every time it escaped her pretty pink mouth.

  In ten short weeks he’d become completely obsessed with her mouth.

  Fuck.

  The Colonel would have him quietly murdered if he had even the slightest inkling of the things Seth imagined doing with that mouth.

  The Colonel to whom he owed his life.

  Double fuck.

  He was here in this bar playing bouncer to protect the woman from danger, which included panting Neanderthals like him. Colonel’s orders.

  Not that she was even a woman really. She was twenty-three, for Christ’s sake. And blushed like a teenager.

  But those sweet curves and that mouth…they were all grown up.

  Fuck. He was a dead man. The Colonel was going to put a hit on him for sure. Hell, he’d probably do the job himself.

  Only two more weeks to tough it out, then he could blow this joint and never see Ivy Danforth and her mouth ever again.

  “This place is pumping tonight.”

  The low voice in Seth’s ear startled the crap out of him. He put his finger to the earpiece and dragged his mind off Ivy. Where it does not belong.

  “Deano? You there?”

  “Sorry…yes, Gaz,” Seth replied. As far as everyone at the Cross Bar was concerned, Seth Rodrigo, security consultant, was Dean Bennett, bouncer. And that was just fine by him. It wasn’t like he was ever coming back to this dump. “All quiet in my quadrant,” he confirmed.

  Except the mad thud of his pulse as the itch ramped up a little more.

  …

  Ivy glanced at Dean for about the hundredth time that night, peeking up at him through her fringe as she pointed the soda gun into the glass with a double shot of rum and hit the Coke button.

  Gawd, he was sexy. Every time she looked at him, he was just more. She’d never met a guy who was so freaking alpha.

  And there’d been a lot of tough-guy soldiers in her life.

  She’d bet her last cent Dean was ex-military. A lot of security guys were. The way he carried himself. His confidence. His economy of movement. His innate control. The other bouncers, despite their training, sucked at diffusing situations. They got all Cro-Magnon and inflamed the hell out of things, using their muscles rather than their
mouths.

  Not Dean.

  He knew how to read a situation and could rapidly diffuse it with a word or a glare. He was more about the brain than the brawn, although God knew he had that, too, with shoulders and biceps stretching the limits of his standard black T-shirt and long, powerful quads testing the seams of his black trousers.

  All that before she even got to his face. Lordy, she’d never seen a more beautifully masculine face. A cleanly shaven jaw sat in perfect counterpoint to his strong forehead. Olive skin stretched taut over cheekbones supermodels would kill for. Sinfully full lips hinted at dark deeds. Eyes the shade of rich molasses peered out from behind a long sweep of charcoal lashes which should have been girly, but just watching the man blink was a study in pure masculine symmetry.

  It was his hair, however, that drew her gaze. Thick and wavy, the same color as his eyes, it looked soft and inviting. God alone knew she wanted to sink her fingers into it so damn bad.

  Her father would have prescribed a haircut but to Ivy he looked like a Romani prince. Sexy and dangerous.

  But the man never looked at her, or not for long, anyway. He just scanned. Sweeping across the room in the same pattern, never lingering or slowing to check her out or give her a smile like the other bouncers.

  Always just scanning, scanning, scanning.

  She, however, was constantly aware of him, her body on high alert. She may not be super experienced with men but she knew what it felt like to be aroused. And it was crazy that he could do so from ten feet away in a crowded room without even touching her.

  Hell, barely even looking at her.

  If he ever did touch her with any kind of sexual intent she’d probably come on the spot. Who was she kidding? She’d probably orgasm if he just accidentally brushed up against her.

  But he didn’t do that. He never did that.

  Even driving her and Merry home every night after work—something he’d insisted on doing when he’d discovered they walked—he kept his distance.

  The strong silent type, that’s what Merry called him, and she was right. It wasn’t that he didn’t talk, he just didn’t do conversation. No matter how hard she and her friend tried to dig in their ten-minute drive home, he gave nothing way. He was polite to a fault but always played his cards close to his chest.

  Which was probably just as well given the devastating effect of his English accent. The first time she’d met him, Ivy had been prepared for deep and sexy. One of those low rumbles that took the laid-back Aussie drawl to a whole other level. She hadn’t been prepared for a smooth-as-silk English accent, the slight poshness oozing over her body rich as double cream.

  She hadn’t been prepared for Richard freaking Armitage.

  And wasn’t that just the cherry on her virgin pie…

  Not that it mattered, she wasn’t in Dean Bennet’s league. He was the kind of guy who dated flamenco dancers or famous actresses or multi-lingual international human-rights lawyers. Not sheltered, little daddy’s girls who blushed whenever he was around.

  Thankfully she only had two more weeks to endure. Then Dean Bennet and his perfect face and his gorgeous hair and his sexy accent would be far behind her.

  And she wouldn’t think about him one little bit.

  “I see you looo-king,” Merry chimed close to her ear over the noise as she pulled up alongside to scoop ice out of the ice-sink.

  “I’m just…trying to see the boss,” she fibbed.

  “Ah huh, sure.” Merry laughed. “I can see you blushing from here.”

  Considering the bar area wasn’t exactly well lit that was saying something.

  Ivy cursed her alabaster complexion as she handed the drink over and the change. Not that she’d ever been much of a blusher. Until she met Dean. For some reason she’d turned into a red-faced, tongue-tied, hormone-addled teenager with a first crush. She felt like an idiot.

  No wonder he barely said two words to her.

  “It’s okay to look,” Merry said as she joined Ivy at the till, waiting her turn. “Hell, if I had my way there’d be a whole lot more than looking going on. I’d love to sink my teeth into that one. He’s all-day sucker material for sure.”

  Just thinking about sucking on Dean gave her palpitations. In her chest. And lower. Way lower. Ivy wouldn’t have thought that was even possible. But now she knew that no part of her body was immune to his certain brand of tall, dark, and hell yeah.

  “I bet he comes real loud, too,” Merry mused, grabbing the change she needed. “Those strong silent types always do.”

  Thinking about him coming sent a waterfall of sensations sluicing down Ivy’s body. Shivers brushed her arms, tightening her nipples and tingling between her legs.

  Jesus. Shivers, tingles, palpitations. This was bloody ridiculous. Why did…lust have to feel like the freaking flu?

  “Are you done there, gorgeous, I need to get in?”

  Ivy looked up to find Jamie, one of the other bartenders, standing at her elbow. He’d been flirting with her for the last ten weeks. He was about her age and cute in that blond surfie way. Also chatty and quick with a joke.

  He should have been the perfect candidate for cashing in her v-card. She was running out of time after all and, logically, he ticked all the boxes. But her body didn’t want Jamie.

  There was no logic to what it wanted.

  “Sorry,” she said, shutting the till drawer and stepping away, giving herself a mental shake.

  Ignore Dean Bennet. Only two more weeks then she never had to embarrass herself in front of him again. And as much as she didn’t want her adventure to end, she wouldn’t miss feeling so flustered all the time.

  “Ivy, I’m dying over here,” Merry called.

  “Coming,” Ivy said and dragged her head back into the game.

  By the time the bar doors shut at two in the morning, Ivy’s feet ached, her throat felt fuzzy from yelling, and she needed to pee desperately. But there was clean-up to do and many hands made light work.

  In half an hour they were done and Ivy slipped out the back with two garbage bags she propped by the rear exit. She’d take them out to the bin in the alley just as soon as she’d been to the loo.

  She was back in two minutes, eager to finish up and hit the sack, exhaustion settling in. Insisting that her father let her go to experience a bit of real life for a change before she settled into the newspaper internship he’d lined up for her had been liberating almost a year ago, but Ivy had learned fast that real life was damn hard.

  She hadn’t minded. In fact she’d reveled in it. But it was always good to climb into bed after a long shift on her feet.

  “Hey gorgeous.”

  Ivy’s hand stilled on the bar of the exit door. She turned and smiled at Jamie. “Hey.” It was nice to know that somebody here thought she was pretty even if she was holding two garbage bags and smelled like a brewery.

  “Want to hit a club with me?”

  Ivy laughed. “Are you crazy? I’m wiped. My bed is calling my name.”

  He smiled and stepped closer putting his hand on her hip. “I’m up for that as well.”

  Ivy frowned as she backed up. Her butt met the door. “Oh,” she said, suddenly not feeling so good about Jamie.

  “Come on,” he cajoled, his surfie swagger in full swing. “I could rub your neck.” He picked up a curl off her shoulder and rubbed it between his fingers as he moved in close. “Or anywhere else you like.”

  The hairs on the back of Ivy’s neck stood to attention. There was only one guy around here she wanted rubbing her in bed and it was not Jamie the jerkoff.

  “Er…” Ivy looked around. The corridor was deserted. Great. “Thanks for the offer. But I’m really very tired.”

  Like Dean, Ivy knew diplomacy often worked best in these kinds of situations. And she was way too tired to have to use that self-defense shit her father had drummed into her over the years.

  Jamie wasn’t being overtly threatening—yet.

  “Are you sure?” he asked dro
pping the curl. He lowered his head until he was nuzzling her ear. “I bet you and I can have some real fun together before you leave.”

  Ivy pulled her head away from the unwanted caress, her pulse accelerating as adrenaline shot into her system. “Stop it, Jamie,” she said, raising her voice, dropping the garbage bags to push against his chest.

  He laughed, resisting her attempts to put space between them, crowding her back farther, her shoulder blades pressed into the door. “Oh come on, baby, don’t be like that I—”

  He didn’t get to finish his sentence. The next thing Ivy knew a gurgly squeak filled the air and Jamie was pinned to the opposite wall by his throat, Dean Bennet glowering down at him.

  “You heard the lady,” he said, his evenly modulated voice dropping into menacing range. Despite the hammer of Ivy’s heart, interesting things squeezed inside at Dean’s gruffness.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by—”

  Another squeak as Dean increased the pressure and Jamie’s eyes bulged a little. “Wrong answer, Jamie. What do you think is the right one?”

  “Sorry,” Jamie said quickly.

  “Sorry. Ivy.”

  Another subtle increase practically bulged Jamie’s eyes right out of his head. Ivy supposed she should insist that Dean stop before he ruptured something important in Jamie’s throat or an eye popped out, but watching the corded muscles of his arm and the measured way Dean controlled the maneuver was pretty freaking hot.

  Just like the rest of him.

  “Sorry, Ivy,” Jamie said, his voice a little on the strangled side.

  Dean stepped back, releasing the pressure instantly. Jamie doubled over, gasping. “Jesus, man,” he panted, looking up angrily at Dean, his hand clutched to his throat. “You nearly choked me.”

  The look of detachment on Dean’s face was shocking. He was in a different zone now. His actions were raw and primitive but his demeanour was utterly clinical. Like a cyborg. Or RoboCop.

  Or a soldier. Definitely ex-military.

  “Better go while I’m still feeling charitable,” he growled.

  Jamie didn’t need to be told twice, lurching upright and stumbling away without a backward glance.

  “You okay?” Dean asked turning his attention to her as Jamie disappeared from sight. Ivy blinked at his instant transformation from cyborg to human being. “Did he hurt you?”