Not just a fucking millimeter.
“You know the horns on the necklace?” I ask.
Surprise jumps her brows. Not by what I’m asking. Just that I’m reciprocating. She can’t hide this cheerful smile, and seeing her this happy makes me feel good.
Really good.
“Oui,” she answers. “The horns are quite pretty.”
I nod once. “It’s called a cornic’—at least, that’s what I know it by.” Cornic’ rhymes with unique. I take out a small bowl. “I was never taught the proper Italian word for it.”
“It has a special meaning?” she wonders.
“Yeah.” I check the matchbook to make sure there are at least three. Four left. “The horn is said to ward off the evil eye. It’s Italian superstition tied into tradition.”
She brims with intrigue. “Why would Banks need to ward off the evil eye?”
I head to the pantry. “It’s said if you have a headache or migraine, then someone has put the evil eye on you.” I pick olive oil off the shelf and return to the kitchen counter.
She loosely crosses her arms. “So you wear the cornic’ to ward off the evil eye and then your headache just…vanishes?”
“My grandma will tell you it helps.” I uncap the olive oil. “Others will say it’s just superstition.”
“What do you say?” she wonders, watching me measure oil into the shot glass.
I stare off for a short second. I see my chain ensnared with another chain. And I blink that flash out. Like a breeze passing by. “I like to believe in family first,” I tell Jane. “And there’s something about a generational tradition that seems fucking powerful to me.”
She nods. “Je suis d’accord.” I agree.
I tried to learn some French when I transferred to Jane’s detail. All of the Cobalts are fluent, and protecting her is easier if I can understand her.
Ten months later, only simple phrases make much sense to me. I’m not that great at picking up other languages.
Jane continues on. “But in my family, there’s also a thrill in irritating my dad with superstitions. As you’re probably aware, along with the rest of the world, he’s solely logic-based, but my mom is very much fate -driven. I suppose I’m somewhere in the middle.”
She has a lot of love for Rose and Connor. In the public eye, her parents might as well be gods. Impossible to live up to, and I’ve seen that immense pressure weigh on her shoulders.
Jane peers closely at the oil and matchbook. “Is all of this to ward off the evil eye as well?”
I nod. “I do the maliocch’…which actually means evil eye, but it’ll take the evil eye away. Which should help with my brother’s headache.”
Probably more than the cornic’.
She leans in closer, her shoulder a breath away from my chest. “What do you do with the oil?”
Air strains again.
I run my hand over my jaw and glance down at Jane, who lifts her chin to meet my hardening gaze.
“I can’t tell you, Jane.”
She nods, understanding. “Because you’re my bodyguard, and I’m your client, and that’d be too much information…” Her voice fades in a shallow breath as she sees me shake my head. We’re too close. My hand skims her waist, and her arm brushes my chest before she rests her knuckles to her lips.
Blood scorches my veins, and my cock throbs.
I force myself to take a step back before our legs touch. “Because it’s a secret. I can’t even tell Banks how to do it.” I hold the knot of my towel. Secured.
Boundary intact.
She tucks a flyaway hair behind her ear like we just fucked on the counter. “So…how come you know how to do the maliocch’ but your brother doesn’t?”
It takes me a minute to explain how in my family, you can only learn the maliocch’ at midnight on Christmas Eve. Superstition and tradition. My grandma taught me. Banks used to fall asleep by that time as a kid. As an adult, he just forgets. Drinks too much spiked eggnog or is working on the holiday.
We talk for half a minute, and then we exit the kitchen into the living room, my supplies in hand. The half-gallon of milk in hers.
Jane drifts towards the adjoining door, next to the brick fireplace. Which leads to her townhouse. I walk back towards the narrow staircase. But we haven’t broken our gazes. Not yet.
“I suppose I’ll see you sometime later,” she says in a soft breath.
She’s only going one door away, but when Jane is at home in her townhouse—when that door shuts—we stay separated and I give her space.
Because at the end of the day, I’m not supposed to mean anything to Jane Cobalt. I shouldn’t be a thought she goes to sleep to.
I’m just someone who protects her from volatile people and dangerous situations.
I expel a coarser breath through my nose. I can’t move yet. “I’ll be there when you call.”
“Sounds perfect.” She smooths her lips together.
We linger.
She motions to me. “I should let you return to your brother.”
I nod.
We stay still.
“Jane.” I hear deep, solid longing in my voice.
“Yes?” Her chest elevates in a bigger breath.
Goddammit. I grind my teeth. Hoping to saw-down this attraction. She’s my client. It takes me a long second, but I get out, “Call me if you need me.”
“I will.” She nods, her collarbones tight.
One of us needs to move.
She’s just twenty-three.
“I’ll see you later,” I say another goodbye.
“À la prochaine.” Until next time.
And finally, I lift my cemented feet and move to the staircase.
9
JANE COBALT
Oh my …oh …my …oh my God.
We just shared an intimate moment in his kitchen, didn’t we? Heat still ascends my breastbone to my neck to my cheeks, and my breath comes out like I’ve jogged five-miles around the block. In practicality, that’s five-miles more than I would ever jog.
Or perhaps I’m just drawing conclusions and filling in blanks that I shouldn’t.
I gently shut the adjoining door behind me, half-gallon of milk tucked to my chest.
If I remove some bias, then I’m left with facts, and those facts are that I don’t need more from anyone. Not love, not sex, not anything in between, and Thatcher and I simply had a normal , polite conversation.
About his personal life, which he very rarely shares.
While he was in a towel—but towels are just ordinary fabrics a person uses after bathing. Towels don’t have to be sensual. Not even when they’re fastened to six-feet seven-inches of heaven and man.
He talked about his family traditions, then he washed my sunglasses without second thought, and did we both struggle to depart?
I touch my lips, my smile absolutely uncontrollable.
“Janie?”
“Hmm.” I wake out of a Thatcher Moretti stupor much too slowly. Just barely noticing Maximoff, who stands rigid beside the pink Victorian loveseat.
“Are you panting?”
“She’s definitely breathing hard,” Farrow states.
“What?” My mind snaps into clearer focus, and my face burns as I notice my audience of two men. Right where I left them.
I’d been in deep conversation with Maximoff and Farrow before I went to retrieve milk next door, and I knew they’d be here when I returned.
I just didn’t expect to be this distracted by my bodyguard.
“No, no panting.” I intake a normal breath and step away from the door. “This is my regular breathing pattern.”
The living room décor is frilly and pastel due to my taste. But Moffy didn’t mind that I decorated our townhouse. I brought in a rocking chair, a pink Victorian loveseat, mint-green rug, framed pictures on the fireplace mantel, and a small iron café table.
Our home smells of coffee, tea, and candles, so very unlike the cedar and musk of security’s townhouse.
“You look flushed .” Maximoff gestures to me with his Batman mug, full of steaming hot tea. He also grips a pack of pushpins.