Kissing Alex

By RJ Scott

A remote Scottish island might be the only safe place to hide.

Martial arts expert Lewis is the kind of bodyguard who slips under most people’s radar. Quiet, reserved, but constantly on alert, he’ll do his job, keep his charges safe, then relax by reading Shakespeare in his spare time.

When he’s given a case involving a spoiled celebrity singer, Lewis isn’t all that impressed. The job is nothing but babysitting a pretty boy, and he’s used to diplomatic postings with depth and challenge. What could he possibly have in common with the man he’s being forced to look after?

Alex became the envy of many when he and his fellow bandmates won second place in a huge TV talent show. He has more money than he knows what to do with, no life goals, an ex-boyfriend selling a sex tape, and now, someone who wants him dead, or at the very least maimed.

Can Lewis keep Alex safe, even when things usually in his control go to hell? Is running to a remote Scottish island the only way for them to stay alive?

• Language: English
• Publisher: RJ Scott
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781785640414

RJ Scott

RJ Scott is the author of the best selling Male/Male romances The Christmas Throwaway, The Heart Of Texas and the Sanctuary Series of books.She writes romances between two strong men and always gives them the happy ever after they deserve.

Book preview

Chapter One

No.

Lewis Nevin didn’t have to be a certified genius with an IQ of 147 to see where this conversation with Kyle was heading.

No, he just had to see the obvious clues—like Ross hiding in the kitchen and Kyle, his boss and his friend, looking all kinds of guilty. In fact, he’d known what Kyle had been hinting at since the very moment the owner of Bodyguards Inc. had called him into the damn office. He just said nothing and let it play out so that Kyle would be on the back foot.

Three years of working for Kyle, and Kyle had always accepted that every year from the end of March and into April he was unavailable for work. So why would he be suggesting things that meant this long-standing arrangement would be changing?

Kyle held up his hands. You don’t even know what I’m asking.

I do, Lewis said. You want me to cancel my month off.

No, not at all.

The piss and vinegar Lewis had sparking through his veins subsided in an instant, but the suspicion remained. Something was going on here.

Kyle continued, with a serious expression and determination in his tone. I have this new case, and it’s personal to us.

Personal how? Lewis wished Kyle would just cut to the chase.

I have a client who needs somewhere to keep his head down for a couple weeks.

And you know I’ll be back mid-April.

That’s too late, it’s needed now. Kyle laced his fingers together and couldn’t quite look Lewis in the eye.

A myriad of emotions zipped through Lewis. Kyle was lying; somehow he was asking Lewis to give up his vacation time, his precious month on the island. I’m not available now, and you said you didn’t need me to— He stopped, his brain catching up with his words, and abruptly it all made horrific sense. Hell no!

He knew exactly where this was going.

Hear me out, Kyle pleaded.

"This month is my time."

I know, and if it wasn’t important I wouldn’t ask.

Lewis held his tongue. As far as he was concerned, any job was important, and that was what Kyle usually thought too.

Kyle continued. This is something Ben asked me for.

Great. Now Kyle was pulling the fellow-bodyguard card.

Still, Lewis was abruptly worried. What’s wrong? Is Ben okay? Is Daniel okay?

Ben’s boyfriend, Daniel, was a nice guy, a singer with an expanding career. Lewis counted Ben as a friend—as much as Lewis had friends with the lack of down time he had.

It’s not Daniel. He and Ben are in Japan at the moment. It’s a friend of Daniel’s.

"A friend of Daniel’s?"

You’ll recall the show Daniel was on….

I do. Lewis wasn’t a man who sat in front of the television watching brain-rotting shit like that. Apart from his obsession way back with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, he didn’t watch much television at all. However, he’d caught enough about the show Kyle had referred to in the news, and he knew exactly who finished where in the competition. Not for the first time, he cursed his brain’s capacity to recall all kinds of useless facts.

Kyle prompted him. The band that came second.

Twelfth Wonder. Stupid name for a band.

One of the boys is having some trouble.

Boys. Trouble. Lewis repeated. Five boys—well, men, actually.

He needs somewhere safe to stay for the next few weeks. He’s the loose end and leverage in a serious case.

Lewis picked up the subtle inference that the man was in danger and that it would be better for certain people if he wasn’t around at all. This was something Lewis had seen before.

But… once a year, that was all, he was due vacation time, and he couldn’t believe Kyle was asking him to work. Nothing disturbed his family time on Stoirmeil or the work he did there. In fact, temper itched inside him, and he had to consciously force it back.

He didn’t get angry. Wait. You want me herding a pretty boy when I should be sitting with my books and getting my downtime. Can’t you get him to a safe house or something?

This goes a lot deeper than one of our normal cases.

Bring him here.

Kyle attempted innocence. I just thought you might want to help. When Lewis failed to react, he sighed noisily. Okay, you have an island. We need a place where no one would find him.

It’s my time, Kyle. You know I need this month.

Kyle looked a little guilty, and then his expression turned sly. It seemed like a good plan on paper, but I told Ross it wouldn’t work.

This was Ross’s idea? Lewis could believe that; Ross was one sneaky fucker. Then he caught Kyle glancing at the closed office door with a guilty expression. It wasn’t his idea. Not a question, a statement of fact.

Kyle nudged a folder toward him. Okay, so it was my idea, but there is one thing. This one pays well, and all you’d need to do is watch over the kid and keep him off the grid.

I said no. I get one month, Kyle—less than that. Twenty-eight freaking days at home.

I had to ask, because I need a guy who can go dark for a couple of weeks, and y’know, you going to the island means that you’d be gone longer than that. His management team is willing to pay well, a year’s money for four weeks’ work. I can probably push them to more if you take it on. They want secrecy.

Who is this guy and what did he see?

Kyle tapped the file. It’s all in here. I think you should read the file and the background information, to see if this case is something you’d want to handle.

This singer. You know I don’t like working for shallow idiots without a single brain cell.

Lewis hated his boss at that moment, which was shitty because he loved working for the tall sexy American. Bodyguards Inc. was one of the places where he felt at home. Years in military intelligence, man and boy, had shown him a lot, given him skills, but it was Kyle who had seen past the brains to the simple man beyond. Lewis hadn’t reached thirty-one without feeling he could judge character, and he judged Kyle to be a fair and excellent boss.

Kyle sighed again; he was doing a lot of that. I know, and this could be a stretch. I don’t know the client at all. This is all being done covertly.

Lewis tried once more to attempt an explanation. Kyle, I have my commitments.

Kyle leaned back in his chair. Young Alex would fit right in. He’d stay quiet and keep out of your hair, and he’d earn you a big bonus for keeping him safe.

Lewis didn’t fall back on cursing very often, finding it easier to construct an appropriate logical reason for his responses than to randomly swear. But he wanted to rant right now, using as many expletives as he could. He was adamant that he wouldn’t take on the job, convinced he was heading north tomorrow for his annual break, and utterly unmoved by anything Kyle had said.

Then the money smacked him in the face. How much money? And was it worth tilting the balance of his life just for more?

The harbormaster’s house needs a new roof; the café needs extending, and the trail needs developing.

He attempted to ignore the inner voice that told him he should at least look at the file. His inner voice won with its promises of financial help for Stoirmeil.

I’ll read the file, he said evenly, holding back the need to snap, and he scooped up the paperwork. You know where I’ll be.

He left the office without a goodbye, without, in fact, another word, storming past Ross and out into the mid-March air, which slapped him on the face with its frosty hands. He didn’t stop being angry until he closed the doors of the manor library behind him, finally safe in the one place he felt most relaxed.

Surrounded by the impressive collection of old books and wedged firmly in the wing chair by the unlit fireplace, Lewis opened the file.

The first thing he saw was a picture of the kid, who, according to his profile, was twenty-seven years old and thus only four years younger than Lewis

He looked young and sexy. Maybe it was the hair, a strawberry blond color, longer in the back and tucked behind the ears, artfully styled in some flicky pile on top — it made him look young. Or maybe it was the eyes, green, Lewis thought, with a hint of brown… hazel, then. The photo was clearly a promo shot by the way the stubble was just a certain neat length, and the pout of soft lips lent a smoldering air to the image.

But it was the lips Lewis really focused on—full and pink and pouty. Lewis had a thing for lips.

For kissing, actually. Clinically he assessed the photo, slapping it face down to one side on the small table next to the chair.

Alex Cantrell. He sounded out the name and then glanced down at the other information.

First was the contract amount: a solid quarter of a million would be the reward for anyone willing to put up with the boy band pretty boy who needed a safe place to sleep for the next four weeks.

Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds was enough to set up Stoirmeil for a year, and it would take the pressure off Lewis having to work 24/7.

He read on.

---

Alex James Cantrell, 27. Birthday April 1, height five nine. Originally from Edinburgh but moved to Bournemouth, on the south coast of England at age eight. Mother and Father deceased, both in their early seventies. Gay. Graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a 2:1 in business studies.

---

Pretty normal for the most part, apart from the fact he had no family, which had to suck. His parents clearly had him as a late in life baby. Then he re-read the information.

Business studies, Lewis muttered. Not quite the same prestige as the degrees in physics and statistics from Oxford and the doctorate in statistics Lewis held. Still, at least Alex wasn’t an idiot and could probably hold a small, somewhat intelligent conversation if needed.

Lewis realized where his train of thought was going, almost as if he was considering the job. He cursed himself and turned to the next page. This was the interesting part, the whys and wherefores of this young man needing a bodyguard, or, in this case, somewhere to hide.

The detail was sparse: Alex had been the victim of a physical attack with no associated hospital stay, and his ex-boyfriend was giving evidence against his own family. A sex tape had been released featuring the potential client and his ex.

Then Lewis saw something that hit him right between the eyes.

Azarov.

One word. A Russian family with a hold in the import and export of anything illegal, with a focus on drugs moving in and out of London and Birmingham. Lewis knew all about the Azarov family: the grandfather, Mikhail Azarov, who had his father’s Russian blood and the fierce passion of his Italian mother, ruled the family with ruthless efficiency. He’d spent over half his life in prison, running his family just as well from behind bars as outside in their Sussex mansion.

The fear of how much the Azarov influence had spread was never more evident than from the fact that the Prime Minister took regular briefings on the matter from the head of Scotland Yard, some of which Lewis had been a party to when he guarded the deputy prime minister last summer.

Azarov and the establishment had an uneasy truce, and the influence of that one man, along with his sons and his grandchildren, was far-reaching.

And Alex-freaking-Cantrell had an ex-boyfriend, Roman Azarov, who was willing to do what it took to shut the Azarov family down?

Well, that wasn’t good. Roman was a grandson of the head of the Azarov family.

What was Roman going to say in court against his family? How bad could it be to destroy an organization that had survived since World War II? Lewis scanned the rest of the papers, but that detail was nowhere to be found.

So Roman’s vulnerability was Alex?

That was why Alex needed somewhere to hide.

Suddenly the library was too closed-in, Lewis’s usual sanctuary invaded enough that he stalked out and into the huge kitchen. He dropped the file on the work surface, and the papers slid out with the photo top and center, Alex’s pouty lips and sexy face staring right up at him.

He started some coffee and leaned there, waiting for the machine to do its thing. The Azarov family played on the wrong side of the law but had enough money to buy almost anyone off.

There were newspaper cuttings in those files—the tabloids going to town on the Alex Cantrell sex tape—but so far nothing had the press connecting Alex to the Azarov family, otherwise Ross would have made a note of it in the file. There were a few stills from the tape: grainy, but very definitely this Alex guy topping the hell out of a man with short hair. Was that Roman Azarov? Had the sex tape been revealed to discredit Roman? Did Alex know what Roman was doing?

Lewis, hey.

Lewis looked up to see Max amble into the kitchen, yawning widely behind his hand.

Morning, Max, Lewis offered with a smile. He liked Max. In fact, there was nothing not to like about the short guy who looked about twenty-one but was actually as old as Lewis.

Coffee, Max whimpered and slumped onto a stool.

Late one?

Three-week rotation on a chat show host who won’t shut the hell up. Max yawned again. Idiot keeps announcing on his show that his guests aren’t the fathers of their babies, and it incites on-screen fights. He shrugged. He’s gonna get people wanting to stab him.

All resolved?

No, I’m still on the books. Adam’s covering me for a few days so I can sleep.

An intense one, then.

Every so often you were assigned cases that sucked the life out of you. Charges who were complete idiots, putting themselves and their bodyguards in danger, or ones who refused to listen. It seemed as if that was what Max was handling.

Lewis poured coffees and passed one to Max along with cream and sugar. Max sipped at the black stuff and closed his eyes in ecstasy. Thank fuck, he muttered. I needed that.

Where’s Prince Lucien?

They were typically joined at the hip on any of Max’s downtimes.

Max grinned at him, then winked. Still in bed.

Lewis quickly changed the subject. Do you know this guy?

Lewis knew that Max, through his lover, Lucien, had a connection to Alex. Lucien was friends with Daniel, who’d been on the same show as the potential client. The way Max’s brain worked was, he collected random facts, and somehow they all stayed in his head. A collection of everything, which then never left.

Who?

Alex Cantrell, from Twelfth Wonder.

Max brightened. Yeah, good kid. He was the one who gave Ben the heads-up on Daniel.

Lewis nudged the file to Max. He needs a bodyguard.

Shit, why? Overeager fans? Ben was saying some girl jumped Daniel the other day, asking to marry him.

Lewis tapped the file with his index finger. "No, I