Page 82 of Her Ruthless Protector

“Did you never play with Play-Doh as a kid? You mix those two colors together and you get lavender. You’re covered.” A.J. held up her hand. “I’m done talking to you. Go away.”

She turned her back on Amber and turned to Troy. “It’s a pleasure meeting you, Fleur.” She spied the ring on her hand. “My God, that’s gorgeous, may I see it?”

Fleur proudly held up her hand.

“When’s the date?” A.J. asked.

“In June,” she smiled. “Troy and I would like to invite you to our wedding.”

“I would love to come,” A.J. answered.

“Come, Darling, we must go. She is very busy.” Troy put his arm around his fiancée and walked her away.

Finally, she turned to Paul Seaton, a.k.a. Python. He was looking sick. “Are you okay?”

“Nerves. They get me every time.” He let out a big sigh. “I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for everything. Tonight is a big one. The girls are ready. They have a hell of a good shot and if I hadn’t gotten my head on straight, they wouldn’t have. I owe it all to you, A.J.. If they do as well as I think they will…” He threw his arms around her. Python’s weight threw her back three steps.

“You’re the shit, Doll.”

Before she could even react, he gave her a kiss on the lips and then was gone. She stood there stunned.

Ewwww.

How in the hell had she let that happen? What was worse, she couldn’t really wipe her mouth off without everyone seeing and snickering at Python. She was screwed. Dammit.

An arm caught her around her waist.

Now what?

Kane turned her and she looked into beautiful green eyes. She didn’t know where it came from, but he had a paper towel and he wiped off her mouth.

“Nothing personal, Doll, but these lips belong to me.”

His big hands cupped her cheeks and then she got a kiss she wanted. All the chaos of the moment floated away. His lips devoured hers, heat pulsed through every cell of her body and all she could think about was loving this man and how much he meant to her.

“Get a room!”

Kane’s laughter tickled her lips. She smiled as he rubbed his whisker-roughened cheek against hers. A.J. turned to glower at Alistair. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing something?”

“It’s more fun to give you a hard time,” he grinned back at her.

A.J. turned back to Kane.

“Got to get back to it. It’s almost show time.”

“Trust me, I know. I actually came here for another reason.” He pulled out an earpiece and microphone that was like the one he was wearing, from the front of his vest. “Here, I want you to put this on.”

A.J. frowned. “So, I talk into this?” She pointed to the tiny microphone that he wound around her throat.

“Yep. We’ve come a long way, Baby. This way you’ll be in contact with both of our teams. I’ll be in the wings, stage left, and Leo’s stage right. That’ll allow us to see both the audience and stage. I know you’re going to be back here directing traffic. Asher’s up there.” Kane pointed upwards and A.J. saw that Asher was actually above her on the catwalk. How had she not noticed him? He waved down at her and gave Kane a thumbs-up.

Kane pressed a button on her device. “Hey, A.J.,” Asher said. “Nice kiss.”

A.J. flipped him the bird.

Asher chuckled.

“Say something back to him,” Kane ordered. “I want to make sure your unit is working.”