I glance at the window while my gaze tightens. Just thinking about all that I fucked to hell pulls out a caustic glare. And I’m not setting it on her. “You mean personally or professionally?”
“Both, but if you’d rather not share, I understand.”
I’d rather talk about Jane, about what’s wrong, but I can’t backtrack. Because backtracking means not answering her, and I hate that.
I lower my eyes, then lift them to Jane when they’re not lethal pinpoints. “Personally…Oscar and I aren’t on that great of footing.” My phone vibrates again. “Same with me and Donnelly. I punched their friend.” I check the message.
Copy. I’ll get Sneakers to leave the parking lot. – Oscar
“I haven’t noticed,” she says. “You all seem very cordial.”
“Because on a professional level, we’re all okay.” Oscar. I’ve known the thirty-one-year-old bodyguard since I first came into security. He’d already been protecting her family for a whole year prior, and he’s intelligent, reliable and thinks ahead before most bodyguards.
He’s also more professional in front of the families. Which I used to be.
Until now.
I fucked my client.
Should regret that —I don’t.
I push myself to add more while Jane is quiet. “Oscar isn’t someone I’d want to lose on the team. He’s one of the best we have.”
Her brows jump. “Who else would you consider the best?”
This isn’t ego-driven horseshit. When you’re in charge of a team, you better know what your men can and cannot do well. I wouldn’t put O’Malley, Kinney Hale’s bodyguard, behind the wheel in a fucking blizzard when I have guys who can drive ten times better under duress.
I look to Jane. “The top three most vital bodyguards are currently all in Omega.”
And I’m not naming my brother, even though I love Banks. Even though I believe he’s necessary and skilled in so many areas that I’m not—there are three men that he’d agree with me are irreplaceable.
So I say, “Akara, Oscar, and Farrow.”
Her lips part in a sudden, overwhelming realization. I understand why her eyes redden before she says the words. “They were all at the car crash.”
I nod and cross my arms over my bare chest.
By dumb luck, the three best men on the team had been on site at the wreck. Hell, Farrow had been in the wreck and came out with only a scratch.
Alpha, Epsilon, and Omega have talked about what that night would’ve looked like if one of those three weren’t on the scene, and we all know it would’ve been a different picture.
All of them had a hand in saving her family.
I explain one detail further to Jane. How security learned that Farrow asked Oscar for a needle decompression kit to help Maximoff. No one but Oscar would’ve known what Farrow was requesting, and time had been critical.
She takes a bigger breath. “I’m really grateful for all of you.”
“I wasn’t there—”
“You were with me that night, I remember. And Moffy needed the best to survive, but I needed you.” She sits up straighter in a jolt. “Professionally speaking. On a professional level, I needed you—and I also…I also still need you, which is also to say that you’re vital to me. Professionally.” Her eyes are huge.
I nod a few times, my chest rising. “I didn’t want to be anywhere else that night but next to you.” I push myself to add, “As your bodyguard.”
Jane taps her pen to her notebook. “So we’re in agreement that you’re the best bodyguard for me…” She trails off as I uncross my arms and climb further on the bed, leaning against the iron headboard. Right next to her.
I nod in response, and the air boils somehow—I don’t fucking know how. We’ve already fucked. There should be no tension left, but we steal these glances that constrict my chest and scorch my veins.
And then my eyes land on her open notebook. At the math equations scribbled in nearly illegible handwriting on pastel purple paper. “Before security texted, I asked if something is stressing you?”
“Um.” Jane shakes out her jumbled thoughts. “Yes…” She takes a breath in preparation. “I suppose the idea that this was a one-time occurrence is weighing on me. I’m not used to one-night stands.” Her eyes drive into me, my chest burning.
Fuck.
“That’s not what this was,” I say and rub my lips. “That’s not what I wanted it to be.” I hate that what she thought we did here was something like a one-night stand. That didn’t even cross my mind.
The notebook makes a hell of a lot more sense now.
Her lips part a little. “You want to sleep with me again,” she realizes. “You want to take that risk…But if the Tri-Force finds out you’re having sex with me, they’ll fire you. Correct?”
“Correct.” My voice is stricter, breath caged in my lungs. No one is covering my ass the way that Akara and I covered Farrow, and the leads are more protective of the girls in these families. “It would also do damage to the men on SFO.”
She nods, understanding. “Because that’s two Omega bodyguards who’ve slept with their clients, and from your bosses’ vantage, that’s two too many.”
“Exactly.” I nod. “But the fake dating op gives us more coverage to do what we want.” We can do this again. I want to do this again. I’m settled with this fact. It feels right. No indecision. No backtracking.
Her eyes glimmer. “It gives us plausible deniability,” she says into a warm smile. “So we use the fake dating ruse as a way to keep having sex.” She closes her notebook and takes a lighter breath like something is rising off her shoulders. “I do think that this is the best thing to come out of the Cinderella ad. Wonderful, passionate sex. That no one can know about, of course.” She frowns. “Including Maximoff. I wouldn’t want him to have to keep a giant secret from all of security again.”
“Then I won’t tell Banks.” It’s only fair. “For the same reason.”
We shift nearer, her blue robe parts between her soft thighs and slips further open at her chest, her small breasts peeking out. My cock strains in my boxer-briefs, and my hand warms her thigh. She places her palm atop mine.
Our eyes lock in an intense beat.
“It’ll have to end eventually,” she says. “We can’t have sex, if we’re not fake dating. The risk of getting caught would increase tenfold.”
I nod, more tense. She’s right. The end date has to be the breakup. A public breakup that security is choosing the date and time and details for. Then things return to the way they were.
No touching.
No kissing.
Definitely not my cock in her pussy.
These logistics aren’t the kind with a happily ever after for us. But at this point, I think we’re both willing to enjoy anything we can.
“Sounds right,” I tell Jane.
This is the only way I can keep Jane safe, the team safe, remain her bodyguard and fulfill a knockout desire we’ve both restrained ourselves from and hungered after.
She begins to smile more brightly. “It seems we are dreadfully tangled, you and I.”
Couldn’t agree more.
22
JANE COBALT
“That is so unnecessary and categorically illegal,” I say aloud and adjust my clutch on the steering wheel, watching paparazzi drive on the shoulder of the bumpy two-lane highway.
Reckless cars fight with each other to be closest to my blue Beetle and to Maximoff’s red Audi, my best friend driving in front of me.
We stay in the right lane, and I concentrate and ride close to his bumper. Not letting anyone squeeze in between our cars.
Thatcher and I would’ve just taken back roads and split up from Maximoff and Farrow, but with the sheer aggression and swarms of cameramen who like to play chicken and bumper cars, we would’ve been trapped in Center City for a troublesome decade. We’ve chosen a troublesome hour on a highway instead.
As my brother Eliot would say, “Paparazzi are ravenous fiends out for flesh and blood.” That has never been truer.