with a mischievous grin as he opened his eyes. "He's a tactical, and suffering... your niece is flitting around the house wide-open, new sexual experience flushed on her pretty face, looking like the blond cheerleader of Dan's wet dreams and getting laid by a Kung Fu master, who just so happens to room down the hall from him. Gabrielle, you just don't know the house dynamics we have to cope with!"
She shook her head and fought a smile. "But I just feel that it's too dangerous. He's still impressionable, like Bobby. I allowed him to visit once after New Orleans, and then I told him that was it." She threw up her hands when Rider laughed harder. "The girls in L.A. are... oh, I don't know."
"'Spectacular' comes to mind," he said with a droll wink. "That's why I took the puppy out and let him get a good hard run on. At his age, realistically, he could go three times a day, seven days a week. It was only once after New Orleans. But you know what they say, Gabby, once is never enough."
"That's the last time, Rider," she warned, still smiling and folding her arms over her breasts. "I'm glad you left him at the house today. And I don't know what you're gonna do about Bobby."
"Don't tell me, you want him to find a nice wholesome girl and settle down?" Rider slapped his forehead. "Jesus, you sound like Marj." Gabrielle laughed. "Yes, I do, Jack Rider. I want that for both Dan and Bobby."
"All right, all right, all right." Rider stood with a grunt and crossed the room to pin her against the dresser with his body. "But for those of us already corrupted and no longer impressionable, please don't put us on newbie rations," he said, delivering a burning kiss to her neck. "Been there. Did my time. We Guardian brothers don't get out much. Just tell me we're not banned and cut off from the most basic pleasures in life?"
"Because I love you, after today, you are," she said, stroking his shoulders.
He pulled back from Her to look at her. "You're serious, aren't you?"
She nodded as sudden tears filled her eyes. "I love you, Rider. I'm not supposed to fall in love with a client, much less a Guardian."
"So, now I'm just a client, huh?" There was no anger in his tone as his thumbs caught the tears that spilled down her cheeks. "I thought we were friends with a very definite understanding."
"No, you've become more than that, that's the problem," she whispered. "You were never a client, and are my friend. You just became something beyond that, is all."
He nodded and kissed her softly. "I know... same here. When did that happen?"
They both laughed sadly.
"That first time," she said in a far-off voice.
"Yep," he murmured against her forehead. "It's always the first time that gets you, isn't it?"
"Go home, Rider. Keep the family safe. Keep yourself safe by staying away from me until things settle down."
"The Chairman is dead, hon, last I checked. So is his replacement. Rivera took his head off with Damali's Isis. Lilith bought it on the side of a mountain in Tibet--saw it with my own eyes. Cold-seeking missiles got her and started an avalanche that I'm lucky to be here to tell you about. Our two Neterus are in union bliss, probably off somewhere as we speak knocking boots. So, what's to settle down?"
"I don't know... call it female intuition. Just go with me on it for now. Maybe it's nothing, but if it is, I'd rest easier knowing you and especially the younger males on your team aren't anywhere near a place that has... different energy. All right?" She stared up at his handsome face and set her mouth hard, resolute.
He gathered her in his arms and released a long, soulful breath. "And how am I supposed to rest easy knowing that someone very important to me is out there all by herself, dealing with the unknown? Like you said, we're friends."
She held this man who'd recently stopped drinking and smoking... this man who'd begun to heal in her care. His tall, muscular frame made her feel safe against everything deadly in the world. The last thing she'd do is put him at risk, yet she wondered how she'd ever get him out of her system when the time came that she'd have to.
"If it will make you feel any better," she finally said, trying to make him laugh,