Page 19 of Broken Bodyguard
“Well, upside is I got to see a lot of the country. From sea to shining sea.”
“That’s…definitely unique,” she said with a laugh.
“When kids were looking at the Grand Canyon in their textbooks, we were there in the flesh, making breakfast sausage over an open flame after staying illegally overnight in the state park,” I went on.
She grinned, but it faded quickly. “Is your father okay now?”
My stomach sank like a rock to my feet and I pulled my hand away from hers. “No. He’s worse than ever. I haven’t heard from my parents in months and I don’t know how to find them. I just gotta wait until he snaps out of it and reaches out. Sometimes my little sister will hear from them and let me know but other than that…”
I swallowed a knot in my throat. It had taken me a long time to realize that my upbringing wasn’t normal, much less healthy. It had taken me even longer to realize that all that fear and suspicion I’d absorbed from my father wasn’t mine to carry either. Made sense why I’d gravitated toward the military as soon as I was able. Having structure and rules felt like a relief after living in the opposite for so long, while the movement and constantly changing scenery was what I was used to.
“Maybe you could put an airtag on their RV…”
“He’d sniff that out immediately.” I rubbed at my face, unsure how deep I wanted to get into my father’s mental health concerns…and whether it might change her opinion aboutme. “He’s pretty paranoid, worried that the government is tracking him and shit. If he found out I actually was tracking him, it would just confirm all his delusions.”
Silence settled between us, broken only by the crackling fire.
“I don’t usually talk about my parents with anyone,” I admitted after a few moments.
She scooted closer to me, legs crossed as she faced me. “I don’t usually escape to a safe house with anyone, either.”
My gaze drifted back to her pretty face. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold, and the way she looked at me had me rethinking my need to keep space between us. After all, she’d kissed me—that elephant in the room had to mean something, right? We hadn’t brought it up, but maybe we needed to talk about it.
“You picked the right guy to escape with,” I told her. “You don’t have to worry about any funny business. You can even kiss me again if you need to and I won’t make a big deal about it.”
Her eyes flashed, reminding me of just how strange this predicament was. I’d connected with her harder and faster than almost anyone in my entire life. But the bodyguard-client rules were ones I believed in and obeyed. Yet she wasn’t technically my client…and I wasn’t doing anything more than just getting her out of a stressful situation temporarily.
The lines were blurry. I wanted to erase them altogether.
“I might need to again.” The teasing tone in her voice was more than clear. A smile curled at her lips.
“Do whatever you need to, Maddie.”
She bit her bottom lip, her knee knocking the side of my leg. “Is that thing you said in the restaurant true?”
I propped my arm up on the back of the bench, trying to think back on all the things I’d said there. “Help me out. Which thing? I said a lot of them.”
Her cheeks flushed, but not from the cold. She yanked her gaze to the fire and watched it while she spoke. “That you’d been wanting that kiss to happen since New York.”
I rubbed at my face again. I’d admitted that in a kiss-drunk moment of honesty. But now, I wasn’t sure which way to play it. That was before I’d taken her away to a cabin in the middle of nowhere.
“I probably shouldn’t admit that, but yeah. It was true.”
She snapped her gaze back to me. “Why shouldn’t you admit it?”
I tipped my head, pinning her with a look. “I’m supposed to be helping you, not making out with you.”
Her hazel eyes danced in the light of the fire. “What would you do if I kissed you again?”
“Why don’t you try it and find out?”
She held my gaze, almost as if waiting to see that I was serious. Then she lifted her chin, looking back toward the fire. “I don’t know. I’ve already kissed you first. Kissing you first the second time would just look desperate.”
She had a point. One that my internal gentleman couldn’t resist addressing.
I hooked my arm around her waist and brought her against me in a swift, fluid motion. She inhaled sharply, looking up at me with question marks in her eyes.
“Let me make it easier.” My voice came out low, hoarse. She was mere inches away now. Her hazel eyes drank me in and the weight of her in my arm, pressed against my body, felt too natural. Like she could stay there forever and I wouldn’t even mind. “I’m acutely aware that this is not the time or the place to be coming onto you. But you should know that not a single day has gone by since we met at Seven’s party where I didn’t think about you or wonder what it would be like to kiss you. And when you showed me the other day at the restaurant, it’s all I’ve wanted since.”
