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Suddenly the voices boomed louder as the door labeled Production Office swung open and a line of bigwigs in suits filed out with tiny Khloe Monroe sandwiched in the middle of thegroup.
The broad smile on her gorgeous face slipped the second she saw him. No doubt, her woman's intuition had picked up on the fact that she wouldn't need to worry about her stalkeranymore.
He was going to kill her before anyone else could get toher.
Chapter 15
"Where the hell did yougo?"
Ryder's grip on her arm above her elbow was so strong, she suspected he was bruising her. Khloe tried to yank away, but he only clamped down harder, pulling her to a stop and roughly swinging her to face his anger straight on. As his icy blue eyes bore into her, she could swear she saw sparks flying from hisglare.
"Is there a problem, Khloe?" Edward Rivera asked her, concern in his voice as he stepped up behindher.
An involuntary tremor raced through her body, making her shaky in her high heels. She struggled to keep her voice steady as she tried to reassure the half-dozen men surrounding her. "Noproblem."
The heat of Ryder's eyes taunted her. Calling her aliar.
There is definitely a problem. I pushed him toofar.
The director, Apollo, announced, "Good. Let's get back to work. I want to finish this scene before we take abreak."
"Khloe will be there in fifteen minutes." Ryder contradicted, never taking his eyes off hers. She wanted to look away, but his gaze held her hostage, commanding her fullattention.
"No, Khloe will be on set in three minutes. We left the crew waiting and have wasted enoughtime."
"Ryder..." Her plea was cutoff.
"Fifteen minutes. Not one minutebefore."
The relief of his breaking eye contact was short-lived when he turned and started stalking towards the door at the end of the hallway. With his grip only tightening on her arm, she had no choice but to run in her high-heels to keep up with his long, angry strides. She heard the men behind her asking who the hell that guy was while one of the crew started yelling "Security!" as loudly as possible. The last thing she heard before they shot out into the mid-day California sun was Trevor trying to reassure them all that Ryder wasn't herstalker.
Khloe's heart was in her throat. As angry as she was at Ryder for embarrassing her, she knew she'd made a huge mistake by underestimating his resolve to keep her safe at all costs. Flashes of the scary man who'd chased her down at Black Light months before swarmed her, reminding her how dangerous he couldbe.
When she almost fell trying to keep pace with him, Ryder stopped long enough to stop, turn and crouch down. Without warning, his left shoulder jammed into her tummy. As he stood, her feet left the ground and her torso and head flopped over, slamming her face into his lower back. In her surprise, she thrashed, afraid she was falling. Only the three fast swats of Ryder's open right palm across her now upturned ass stopped her from flailing like a fish on the hook at the end of aline.
From her upside-down vantage point, she knew he was headed towards her trailer. While she was grateful he was moving their upcoming knockdown, drag-out argument to a private location, she was equally petrified of being alone with this angry version of her newestbodyguard.
As her panic grew, she started pounding her fists ineffectually against his ass. Within seconds, his palm was back on her butt with much greatereffect.
"Keep it up, baby. I'm sure we're putting on a great show for anyone who'swatching."
She stopped immediately. She felt her face turning red, unsure how much of it was from the blood rushing to her upside-down head versus the heated embarrassment of being spanked like an errant child in the open parking lot, surrounded by trailers busy with entertainment professionals who would be more than happy to stop what they were doing to watch an A-List actress getting her ass blistered by herbodyguard.
The only way she knew they'd arrived at her trailer was Ryder's strides up the steps to the door. The gust of air-conditioned coolness confirmed their arrival as Ryder shouted at Randy and Cathy, her hair and makeup artists waiting to touch herup.
"Everyone out." They must not have started moving fast enough to suit Ryder because he added a stern, "Now!"
Khloe was relieved she was upside down so her employees couldn't see how mortified she was. Relief was short lived when Ryder followed them to the door. Khloe caught a glimpse of the murderous look on a running Trevor's face as he rushed towards the trailer just as the door crashed closed behind them. She heard the lock being engaged and then the deadbolt being slammed intoplace.
Trevor's "Open up, Helms!" was muffled. The pounding of his fists against the door as he tried to get in went unnoticed by her present captor as he turned and stomped into the dressing room of the opulenttrailer.
He dumped her back on her feet as unexpectedly as he'd snatched her up only moments before. Things were moving so fast, she had no time to react. No time to fight back. No time to try to wiggle free and get to the door to let Trevorin.
Even as she thought of her original bodyguard, in her heart she knew there was nothing he could do to help her right now. The only consequence of Trevor getting inside the trailer would be him being beaten to a pulp by the furious man standing behind her. He'd swung her to face the huge makeup mirror, each of his hands now digging into both her arms above her elbows, holding her stationary as he slammed his rock-hard chest against her back, locking them like two puzzle pieces gluedtogether.
Their eyes met in the mirror and all breath left her. As frightened as she was, Ryder was magnificent in his dominance. Unbelievably, in her breathless moment, Khloe realized she could read the emotions in his glare as easily as she could a book she'd read a thousand times before. The anger she'd expected, but there was so much more there. Concern. Worry.Panic.
She'd scared him with her childish disappearingact.
