Close Protection

Nico Ashworth has spent eleven years treating his security detail like a game he's determined to win. As the heir to a $14 billion empire, slipping his bodyguards is the only way he feels alive—until a night out ends in an alley with two men intending to use him as collateral. Enter Declan Shaw. Six-foot-four, ex-military, and terrifyingly competent, Declan is Ashworth Global's head of security. He doesn't play games. When he fires Nico's incompetent detail and takes over personally, Nico finds himself locked in his own penthouse with a man who absorbs his bratty provocations like a concrete wall. Declan's rules are absolute: Nico doesn't leave without permission, and he doesn't touch without permission. But the real danger isn't the stalker circling the building. It's the way Declan looks at him. It's the coffee he makes every morning, the steady rhythm of his breathing, and the devastating realization that for the first time in his life, Nico has found a wall that won't crumble when he pushes. When the threat escalates and they are forced off-grid to a remote mountain cabin, the professional boundaries shatter. Declan might be paid to keep Nico alive, but protecting his body is no longer enough. He wants everything underneath. Close Protection is a high-heat, forced-proximity M/M romance featuring a billionaire heir, a fiercely protective ex-military bodyguard, strict rules, intense hurt/comfort, and a guaranteed HEA.