Behind them, the kitchen door slammed open, allowing in a blast of music and the shouted conversations and laughter of the party.

      Julie looked past the broad-shouldered man in front of her to the blond woman grinning at her from the doorway.

      “Julie! You’re with a guy! Yay you!” Instantly she slapped one hand across her mouth and winced. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

      “Oh, yeah,” Julie said, her chin hitting her chest. Trust Alicia to come into the room at exactly the wrong moment. Or was it the right moment? Julie wasn’t sure anymore.

      “Sorry about that,” the other woman said with an embarrassed shrug. “Too much wine, I think.”

      “It’s okay.” Giving her roommate a wry smile, she realized that she should actually be relieved that the smiling blonde had barged in.

      So why wasn’t she? Good question, she thought and searched for the answer.

      A few months ago, she’d tried every trick she knew to get an interview with L.A.’s own mystery gazillionaire. She hadn’t been able to worm her way through his guard dogs—lawyers. Now here he was—big as life, a hell of a kisser, and hey, possibly nuts—in her very own kitchen. She didn’t even know what to think of him. Gorgeous, sure. Lust worthy, without a doubt. But what kind of man carries a sword and tiptoes through other people’s minds?

      By all rights, she should be terrified just being alone with him. Yet, the only thing she was really worried about here was her virtue—which, let’s face it had disappeared a long time ago.

      Besides, if Kieran MacIntyre had wanted to kill her, he could have done it when his tongue was down her throat. She shivered at the memory and squelched the desire to do it again. For heaven’s sake, what the hell was going on?

      “So,” Alicia prompted, nodding her head at Kieran as she spoke to Julie, “who’s your friend?”

      “He’s not my friend,” Julie countered, glancing from her roommate to Kieran and back again. Only a moment ago, she’d been worried about being alone with him. Now she nearly resented Alicia’s presence. “I just met him,” she said, avoiding for some reason, giving her friend Kieran’s name.

      One blond eyebrow lifted and Alicia grinned. “Way to go, Jules.”

      “Oh, yeah, yay me,” Julie muttered, her gaze swinging back to the man in front of her.

      Alicia laughed and walked straight to the refrigerator, swaying her hips in a timeless invitation that was more unconscious than deliberate. “See? I’ve been telling you for weeks that you have to get your head out of your work once in a while.”

      “Yeah, well…” She glanced at Kieran, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore. Instead his ice-blue eyes were locked on her roommate.

      Typical.

      Well, what did she expect? She wasn’t exactly dressed for seduction, that amazing kiss notwithstanding. Then she noticed that Kieran was looking at her again. “She’s your friend?”

      “Yes,” Julie said, glancing now at Alicia, who was rooting around in the fridge. “She lives here with me.”

      “She should leave,” Kieran said softly, his voice somehow carrying over the slam of the party noise.

      “Huh?” Julie moved away from him. For God’s sake, was the man going to try to empty the house one person at a time?

      Alicia hooted, “Hah! I knew there was another bottle in there somewhere!” She dragged her prize, a bottle of chardonnay out of the fridge before shutting the door again. “Who’s leaving?”

      “Nobody,” Julie said, never taking her gaze off Kieran. The man could melt steel with that hot glare, but she wouldn’t back off.

      Alicia stepped up beside Julie. “He wants us to leave? Our own house?”

      “For your safety.”

      “Uh-huh.” Alicia nodded slowly, as if soothing a crabby three-year-old. “Okeydokey. Julie honey, I’m going back into the party now. You coming?”

      The overhead light shone down fiercely, throwing Kieran’s features into sharp relief. He looked…otherworldly. Mysterious. Dangerous. And just a little bit—okay a lot—sexy. Shadows hid his eyes, but Julie felt the power of them just the same.

      “Something’s wrong here,” he finally said, though he looked as though he wanted to say more.

      “I’ll say,” Alicia muttered and gave him one last dismissive glance before turning her attention to Julie. “Come on, Jules. Let’s go.”

      “No,” Julie said, still looking at Kieran. She didn’t know why, but for some reason, she wasn’t ready to walk away from her sword-wielding mystery kisser. “I’ll be fine.”

      Alicia turned a glare of her own on Kieran. “If he bugs you at all, call the cops.”

      “Don’t worry.”

      “Honey, I never worry,” Alicia said with a wink, still ignoring the man watching both of them. “Makes wrinkles.”

      She never looked at Kieran again when she left the room.

      “You won’t leave?” he asked when they were alone again.

      “No.”

      He nodded. “I can’t promise to protect you.”

      “Who asked you to?” Her spine stiffened even as a tiny curl of worry unwound in the pit of her stomach.

      Funny, but in the six months she’d been in Hollywood, she hadn’t felt the need for protection. Until tonight. This moment.

      “It’s my duty,” he said, crossing the room to her in a few long strides.

      “You just met me and I’m suddenly your duty?” How she’d managed to speak past the huge knot in the middle of her throat was a mystery. Almost as big a mystery as the man crowding in way too close to her.

      He backed her up against the counter until she felt the cold tile pressing into the small of her back. She shivered, but she knew damn well it wasn’t the cold causing it. No, it was the heat pouring off of him to surround her, to invade her, to make her want…oh, boy.

      How was it possible that her normal, everyday life had taken such a completely weird turn in the span of about twenty minutes? And how could she be more interested in feeling him hold her again, kiss her again, than in figuring out what the hell was going on around there?

      “You won’t leave. I accept that.”

      “Gee, thanks.”

      “Stay in your room. Lock the door.”

      “Trust me,” she whispered. “First thing on my agenda.”

      “I’ll