He’ll keep her safe...but can he keep his distance?

When Addison Cobalt learns she has a potentially volatile stalker, she tries to hide it from her business partner, Logan Dane. The hyperprotective, supersexy cohead of their security company will only try to take control of the situation—and her.

Which is exactly what Logan does when he finds out about the stalker. Addison craves the safety of Logan’s body, but that doesn’t mean she’s willing to give up her independence, or all of her secrets, for him. She has a few ways to shake Logan’s iron control, but it’s a wicked and risky game. Because the only thing more dangerous than her stalker is Mr. Dangerously Sexy himself!





“You want to fight me, Addison?”

“Very much so.” Addison’s eyes were wide, dark. Excitement lit her cheeks.

Logan rubbed his thumb over her ankle, tracing the delicate bone in circles. “What’s the wager?”

“Full control for the next three days. If I win, you’ll fix up my apartment and then leave me to my business unless I ask for your protection.” She folded her hands neatly on the table. “And you have to tell everyone at work that I’m a better boss than you are.”

A smile twitched on his lips. “And if I win?”

“You can boss me around as much as you like. I’ll do anything you want without complaint.”

Her words rocketed through him, scorching him from the inside out. “Anything?”

“Whatever your wicked heart desires.”





1

ADDISON COBALT’S FATHER had made a living out of taking down bad guys, so she knew the world had an ugly underbelly. But knowing it and experiencing it were two different things. She smoothed her hands over the printed email that sat on her desk. Hateful words stared up at her.

“I don’t understand what’s going on here,” she said, furrowing her brow.

Rhys Glover, the IT manager for Cobalt & Dane Security, pursed his lips. “He’s threatening you.”

“Yes, I got that from the ‘I’m going to kill you’ section of this email. But I don’t know who could have sent it or why. I don’t have any enemies.”

“Clearly, you do.”

Raking a lacquered red nail down the neat rows of twelve-point print, she searched for a clue as to the identity of the anonymous email sender. “You’d think that if he was going to threaten my life, he could at least introduce himself first.”

Rhys narrowed his dark eyes. “You don’t seem to be taking this very seriously, Addi.”

One of Rhys’s staff members had come across the email that morning when she’d been combing through the spam filter on an unrelated assignment. She’d brought it directly to Rhys. The message had never made it to Addison’s email address because of its excessive profanity.

“I’m not sure how anyone could take an email seriously from someone who calls themselves ‘your worst nightmare.’ I mean, how clichéd is that?” She rolled her eyes. “Thanks for bringing this to me, but it’s probably a hoax. Just some guy who hates women and wants to get his jollies by sending a nasty email. I’m not too worried—”

“I think we should involve Logan.”

Addison bristled. “He has bigger things to worry about than some misogynistic idiot.”

Truth was, she didn’t want Logan getting involved. She tried to keep anything remotely personal as far away from him as possible. Their relationship was strictly business, and it had to stay that way. It was bad enough that she had to accept that everyone viewed him as the boss despite their being equal partners, and she’d rather stab herself in the eye with her own stiletto before admitting she needed his help.

Besides, there was the issue of her top secret plans to start her own business separate from Cobalt & Dane. Having Logan stick his nose into her personal life wasn’t something that she could allow at the moment.

“The safety and well-being of everyone in this company is his responsibility.” Rhys ran a hand over his cropped dark hair.

“Our responsibility,” she corrected. “Since my name is on the wall here, his responsibilities are also mine.”