Close Protection by Riley Morgan Page B

dresser and found the top and bottom to a matching teal bikini. He did his best to ignore the other lacy contents of the drawer, and not to think about what they’d look like on (or off) of Lena. He turned around to leave and give her some privacy, but Lena stopped him.
                  “What,” she said. “It’s not like you haven’t seen it before.”
                  She shamelessly pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it aside. Ramon averted his eyes, but before he did, he caught a fleeting glimpse of her bare chest. He felt a twinge between his legs as the image of her naked body burned into his eyes.
                  “Ok, it’s all safe now big guy,” he said, giggling at his modesty.
    She wrapped her arms around his neck as he scooped her up and carried her through the bedroom door, down the stairs, and out back. He started towards the lounge chairs on the far side, but as he walked past the deep end, he unceremoniously tossed Lena into the pool, catching her completely off guard.
    The initial surprise wore off as she hit the surface and sank into the warm water. Completely submerged, she felt like a new woman. The pain of the last few days had washed away in a moment, and she burst up through the surface and took a revitalizing breath of fresh air for the first time in days.
    “You bastard!” she shouted, but she was not angry. Ramon stood at the side of the pool, laughing hysterically.
    “If I could walk I swear to God I’d come up there and show you what’s what!”
    The image made Ramon laugh even harder. She knew she couldn’t push Ramon around, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t have other ways of getting him in the pool. Lena had grown up in the water, she was about as at home there as she was on dry ground. But Ramon didn’t know that. So while she treaded water, talking to him, she began to feign shortness of breath. As they continued talking, she’d wince now and again, not too much, but enough that Ramon noticed.
    Then, in the middle of a story about a time that a bird had flown into the house and Tia and Michaela spent all afternoon chasing it around with a broom, she started to gasp, cry out, and sank beneath the water. Lena could hold her breath for over a minute. It only took fifteen seconds for Ramon to dive into the pool and pull her up to ‘safety’.
    As soon as they were back above water, Lena started laughing. Ramon               knew that he’d been tricked right away, and his cheeks turned bright red. Lena kept laughing as he pulled himself up onto the side of the pool, his suit soaking wet and clinging to his body, his hair dripping down in front of his face.
    “I suppose I deserved that,” he said, wiping water out of his eyes and wringing it out of his sleeves. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, looked at it, and frowned.
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
    Ramon didn’t mind. It was cheap and the only thing on it of any value were three phone numbers which he had committed to memory. Still, he’d need to get a new one. A cell phone is perhaps the most important tool a bodyguard can have. A fact that most bodyguards overlooked. Some men are just too macho to know when they’re in over their heads and need help.
    Lena swam for nearly an hour while Ramon sat in a chair drying himself out. It was a beautiful afternoon.
    “Aren’t you supposed to be working?” Lena said as she swam past him with his arms behind his head and his legs propped up on the lounge chair.
    “I am working,” Ramon said. “And your stepfather took all his goons out on urgent business, so I can’t take care of any of the improvements.”
    “So we have the house to ourselves?” Lena said with a look that started Ramon. Her bodyguard did not know how to respond. Lena swam over to the shallow end of the pool and pushed herself gently onto the steps. All the time in the water had opened her wounds and made them