Primal Instinct by Tara Wyatt Page A

one toward Colt, who accepted it with a smile and cracked it open.
    “I’m good. You?”
    “Yeah. Good. Lacey tells me you’re working for Taylor Ross?” He arched an eyebrow and leaned in. “That true?”
    Colt took a long swallow of his Coke. “Yep.”
    Paul whistled. “Man. She’s on my list.”
    “Your list?”
    “You know, the freebie five? Five celebrities that, if given the opportunity, I can sleep with and get a pass.”
    Colt almost snorted soda through his nose. “I see.” Not one to kiss and tell, Colt let the comment slide, and his phone buzzed again from his back pocket.
    You make my tail wag back and forth really fast, cutie. What’s your favorite animal?
    “The hell?” Colt muttered. Another unknown number.
    “Something wrong?” asked Paul, trying to peer at Colt’s screen. Colt knew Paul liked to live vicariously through him—being a bodyguard to celebrities and other high-profile clients was a lot more exciting than being an accountant for a chain of sushi restaurants—and he was usually happy to humor him with what details he could without violating a client’s confidentiality. He knew Paul wasn’t trying to be nosy. In fact, he really liked Paul. He was the only one of Lacey’s boyfriends he hadn’t wanted to punch in the face. Hell, he had punched a couple. But they’d deserved it. No one hurt Lace and didn’t answer to him for it.
    “Nah.” He tucked his phone back in his pocket just as it buzzed. Again. This time the text message was accompanied by a picture of a person wearing a head-to-toe fox costume, like the kind you’d see an entertainer wearing at Disneyland.
    This foxy lady wants to play! What do you say, sexy?
    “The fuck?” He muttered again.
    “Watch your mouth,” chimed in Lacey, who’d just reappeared from the kitchen carrying a tray laden with watermelon slices, potato chips, sliced-up veggies, and a bowl of dip.
    “Sorry,” he said, taking the tray from Lacey’s hands and setting it down on the nearby table.
    “Can I talk to you?” she asked, and turned back toward the house without waiting for his answer. It was sweet, the way she pretended he had a choice. He followed her, and as he stepped inside the small but warm and welcoming Spanish-style bungalow, his phone buzzed again. He quickly checked it again to make sure it wasn’t Taylor or Roman. It wasn’t. With a grunt, he shoved it back in his pocket. But it buzzed. Again. And again. More texts came in, some featuring pictures of people dressed up as various animals.
    A woman dressed as a life-sized bunny: Like what you see, your highness ?
    A man dressed as a bull: You make me horny.
    His jaw tightened as he changed his phone from vibrate mode to ring, and assigned both Taylor’s and Roman’s numbers a unique ringtone, ignoring the rest for now. He needed either of them to be able to get in touch, but everyone else could fuck off. He tossed his phone, screen down, on the table, and sat down across from Lacey. A pair of green eyes that he knew were identical to his own stared at him, tension etched across her brow. She tucked a strand of her auburn hair behind her ear.
    “She really wants to see you, you know.”
    He knew exactly the “she” Lacey was talking about. Their mother, who’d blamed him for her first husband—and Colt and Lacey’s father—leaving. Who’d been nasty, and cold, and a shitty excuse for a mother. Who’d dragged him and Lace from one bad relationship to another. He’d spent most of his life looking after Lacey, keeping her safe and making sure everything turned out okay for her. Making sure that if anything bad was coming their way—and with their childhood, there’d always been something bad coming—he would be the one standing in front of her, ready to take the brunt of it. As far as their mother was concerned, anything that ever went wrong was somehow his fault, given his propensity for driving away her scuzzy boyfriends, and after he’d beat the snot out