make sure she was protected.
He followed her into the suite and looked around at the mess she’d already made. Clothes, shoes, and make-up were scatted across the room making it look like a whirlwind had been through. She wasn’t a naturally tidy person, life was too short but she saw Jack’s wide eyes and knew it would be driving him crazy.
She knocked on the door, it opened seconds later, and Bebe stepped through into her room. “Hey.”
“Bebe, I’m off now, so I’ll see you later.”
Astrid turned to find Jack picking up clothes and placing them over the arm of the chair and pairing the shoes and lining them up. She folded her arms over her chest. “You got a new job as a maid, Jack?”
She saw him smirk as he looked up and came towards her with a glint in his eye that promised retribution for her smart-ass comment. “How can you think in this chaos?”
“Chaos is my middle name.”
He stepped close and took her chin in his hand, the grip firm but gentle as he eyed her lips like a starving man. The shock of desire burned through her, and she fought to keep her knees locked in place.
“Firefly, you’re definitely chaos, and it turns out I like it more than I thought.”
His thumb pulled at her bottom lip, and her breath hitched. Jesus Christ, he was flaying her skin with the heat in his blue eyes.
He let go and walked to the door. “Come on. I don’t want to be late for my own meeting.”
Astrid cast a last glance at Bebe who was fanning herself and followed him out of the room. That was the kind of move that made her lose all sense and become a ball of sexual need.
Chapter Eleven
Jack strode towards the conference room on the floor that was set up for the meeting. It was only two doors away from the Royal Suite, so he left two men outside the door. He’d served with some of the Fortis guys and had worked closely with the rest since and knew Jace could handle anything. Dane was equally trustworthy and competent. He wouldn’t have called them otherwise, and God, did he need them. Keeping this tour going and the Queen and the Prince Consort safe was a task on its own but add in his father, and now Ravelino, and it had become a nightmare.
He’d hardly had a second to himself since the attack except for the two hours’ sleep he’d managed to catch on the plane. He’d rather have talked to Astrid, but his body had recognised it was past exhaustion even if he hadn’t and shut down.
Waking, he’d found her still next to him, her hand where he’d left it in his, reading a book about knitting techniques. She was such a paradox, and the more he got to know her, the more he wanted from her. She was sweet and funny, sensitive, but still full of fire and attitude. She never let him get away with his shit and didn’t think twice about calling him on it.
It was one of the things that had made him notice her. Not that any of the women in his world were scared of him and rightly so. He’d never harm a hair on their heads and would die to protect any one of them—even Roz. Although he had no intention of ever letting her know that.
He walked in and noticed his team were already in situ spread out across the back of the room. The men from Fortis were seated closer to the front.
Zack approached and shook his hand. “Thanks for coming, Zack.”
“No problem. We were just spinning our wheels anyway, and God knows you’ve helped us enough in the past.”
“Well, it’s good to have you here because this shit storm just became a fucking tornado.”
He saw Astrid take a seat beside Lopez and had the urge to move her closer to him and away from his friend. His firefly had no idea the effect she had on men. Lopez was unknowingly walking a very fine line as he laughed at something she said and leaned in closer as she smiled back. A surge of jealousy hit him, and he wanted to rip Lopez away. He wanted to own her smiles, be the one she graced with her laugh. It was fucking ridiculous and something he’d never experienced before, and he didn’t fucking like it.
Zack followed his sightline and his eyebrows rose. “Oh, it’s like that,